Out on the Deep Blue Sea
by messyhead
Summary: This is a sequel to "The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea". Thanks to Neesie-Pie, as usual. I also owe a lot to Walter Lord's great book "A Night to Remember". Thanks for reading and reviewing!
1. Chapter 1

Aboard _the_ _USS Anastasia_, ONE commenced his duties in the kitchen by chopping a mountain of carrots into matchstick shapes. He was simultaneously fearful and excited - and it had nothing to do with root vegetables. There was also a tinge of smugness in his mood as he marveled at how easy it had been to transport all the raw materials on board. Though there had been one or two tense moments with security, it could not have gone better. With the help of THREE, a petty officer, they had sneaked them in piece by piece, hidden amongst the huge flats of supplies required for the voyage. If any single component were discovered, it be such an innocuous looking thing no one would be suspicious anyway. The explosives themselves had been brought in amongst bags of wild rice, which THREE had immediately removed to a locked storage closet. He then handed the key off to TWO. TWO could now roam the ship at his leisure, to the supply rooms and storage closets, collecting the pieces to build the bomb that would take this iron monstrosity down to the ocean floor.

FOUR, posing as security for the British contingent, walked the boat deck, surveying the situation with concern. For one thing, real security people were everywhere - most of them American. Opportunities would be few. He wasn't going to get much sleep for the next few days, that much was certain.

For FIVE, the work was done. The year long job of finding allies, making introductions, providing training, ensuring the right contacts were made at the right moment - the hours and hours of quiet orchestration - were about to pay off. All that remained was to unpack, settle into Stateroom Two, and watch the it unfold. FIVE looked out of the porthole and mused again on the great lesson of _the Titanic_ - a lesson that had been completely lost in only sixty-five years. Such a pity that the human race is so stupidly forgetful. That cautionary tale - which taught us that we are an intelligent species, but only smart enough to land ourselves in big trouble - was a lesson that was about to be learned again, and this time, by those who needed it most.

--

As the big ship rumbled out of its berth, Oscar Goldman took a scratch pad from his breast pocket and flipped through it for perhaps the twentieth time that morning. It was filled with scribbles in point form, frequently capitalized and underlined. Most of them were crossed out, but he was positive there was something he had missed. His capacity for worry was almost bottomless and in recent years bordered on obsessive. Russ, heaving a sigh of relief and rolling his eyes, had disembarked just a few minutes earlier having combed over every detail countless times.

This whole idiotic event had been dreamed up by the new Secretary of State - Douglas Wilson. He had decided that the U.S. and a few select allies - France, Belgium, Great Britain, Holland, Germany and Canada - ought to bring some of their best scientists together for a "Science and Security" summit, where they would discuss the pressures and responsibilities of modern governmental scientific institutions. That part was fine - interesting in fact, but it was Wilson's insistence that they hold the event on a luxury liner on the Atlantic ocean that bothered Oscar. Wilson reasoned that the voyage would be secret, and while on board they could all relax together and discuss issues out of the glare of public scrutiny. As far as the rest of the world knew, the summit was taking place in New York four days later - the day they would disembark. Oscar had protested at length, telling Wilson over and over again that they would be virtually helpless out there, marooned in the middle of the ocean with no quick means of escape, but Wilson dismissed his concerns. Oscar knew if he pushed any further he seriously risked compromising his relationship with the Secretary so he relented and had hardly slept since. He did the best he could - reducing the passenger and crew list to a mere four hundred people, running thorough background checks on every one of the four hundred, and watching all comings and goings while the ship was in port.

To add insult to injury, Wilson had decided Oscar was just the man to give the talk on the third night on the topic of "Defense and Aggression" - the ethical dilemma faced when a country is constantly engaged in improving their defenses. When is it defense and when does it become aggression? It was a difficult issue, one that had haunted Oscar over the years. Sturdy conclusions were hard to come by, so he hoped to fill out his talk with examples in history. He was anxious about it, no question. He wasn't particularly fond of public speaking, and he was so distracted by security concerns that he would have to be careful not to make a complete hash of it.

It had been just under two years since Lisa Galloway posing as Jaime had smashed his heart and his life and his sense of self-worth to tiny bits. To help him cope he installed in his mind an RDC (Recruit Division Commander), modeled on the one who had put him through basic training in the Navy years before. He had hated basic training, but now he was grateful for it. The RDC in his head told him what to think and feel, or, more accurately, what _not_ to feel, and he did his best to obey. The first year he failed miserably. Sometimes the twisting sensation in his battered heart left him inarticulate and sullen for days at a time. On several occasions he had felt so physically sick with loneliness and despair that Russ had to come around to roust him out of bed in the morning. Louise and Rudy had done what they could, listening to him, offering distractions, meals, company and alternate points of view, until finally he had become sick of listening to himself. At that point the RDC began to get through to him. Slowly his life became more manageable, though not any happier. He got himself out of bed in the morning, stopped howling to Louise and Rudy, and gained back some small measure of his dignity.

His one regret was that he had become necessarily distant with Jaime - who deserved only the warmest gratitude from him - because she had the power to overrule his inner RDC in an instant. It was easy to see that this hurt her - he saw it almost every time they spoke. Way back when he had told her that he was going to 'get back to normal', but he had never been able to do it. Only by intense discipline was he able to keep himself locked up tight, safe from all that pain. Louise told him he had become "grim" and that she missed the old Oscar. He told her it was the best he could do.


	2. Chapter 2

Jaime Sommers opened the door to her cabin and regarded it from the entrance. The glory days of trans-Atlantic travel were over, that much was clear. The small room was done up in a combination of brown and orange and cream, supposedly glamorous in a contemporary style, but it fell short of the glamorous part by some distance. The porthole was nice - brass, in fact - and was perhaps the best clue that she was on an ocean liner. Still, it was a thrill to be aboard - even if it was to a theme of icky colors.

Eying the contents of her suitcase, she decided four and a half days warranted a full unpacking; for some reason it bothered her to go to all the trouble of packing just to undo it right away. She hung up her outfits and quickly threw the rest into drawers. With just a little time to herself she wanted to get out and explore the ship.

Reluctantly she picked up the papers Russ had given her before he'd disembarked. There was the schedule for the conference, meals, and special events, and a couple of pages of personal information about the Wilsons that she was supposed to digest before meeting them in an hour. Russ, overburdened and apologetic, had briefed and re-briefed her regarding security issues, repeating himself (at Oscar's insistence) several times over.

Confident that she would figure it out as she went along, she quickly scanned the documents, threw on her favorite long cardigan, and headed up to the main deck. She hadn't taken more than a dozen steps when she heard someone call her name - a lone figure waving from the row of deck chairs.

The voice gave her away, but otherwise Jaime wouldn't have recognized Louise Wells, bundled up in layers of outerwear, scarf tied over her head, several blankets slung over her knees, dark glasses slipping down her small nose, book in hand.

"Hi Louise!" she grinned, bending to a hug. "I didn't know you were coming!" She had always liked Louise - her frankness and warmth - and gravitated to her on social occasions. Rudy had told Jaime that if he couldn't find Louise at a party at one a.m., he had learned to look in the kitchen and he would invariably find them together, head to head, giggling in a conspiratorial manner. At this moment, she was exactly the person Jaime needed to talk to. "Are you attending this thing?" she asked.

"Oh, hell no." Louise replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I'm about _this_ interested in science and security as a topic," She made a 'zero' with her thumb and forefinger, "and they're just about as interested in the work I do. So I'm here in a wifely capacity only. It's a great opportunity to get some fresh sea air and catch up on my reading."

"They're not interested? Why not?" Louise was a renowned psychologist, specializing in the study of mental illness.

Her friend shook her head. "If it isn't about brain washing and mind control, the Intelligence community couldn't care less."

"Well, they should care. This is where it all starts, after all." Jaime tapped her forehead, grinning.

"You're such a sensible person. Here, come sit with me." Louise offered, handing her a blanket.

"I can't stay long." Jaime said regretfully as she arranged herself on the deck chair, "I'm expected in the conference room pretty soon."

"Oh, of course. Are you babysitting, or something else?"

"Oh, the usual - babysitting and eavesdropping. I'm keeping an eye on the Secretary and his wife."

"Well, you're practically a VIP then."

"Hardly. I'm disguised as Douglas Wilson's personal assistant. Where's Rudy?"

"I'd bet you five bucks he's sitting in the front row right now, glowing with excitement. There's some German on board who is the last word in synthetic molecular research and Rudy wants to trade notes. He could barely sleep last night." Louise chuckled.

Jaime laughed. "So, how have you been?"

"Great. Busy. Happy to have a break." She gave the younger woman a significant look. "More importantly, how have _you _been?"

"Oh, I'm okay." Jaime sighed. "You heard about Steve and me, huh?"

"Yeah - and I'm really sorry."

"Me too." Jaime smiled sadly.

"How are you doing with it all?"

"Well ... _basically_ I'm fine. It was the right thing, but it's still hard. I feel like we've disappointed everybody who's been rooting for us all these years."

"Nobody's disappointed, Jaime - sad for you maybe, but you have to do what's right for you. In fact, we'd only be disappointed if you didn't."

Jaime smiled, looked out to the blue waters and shook her head. "It was supposed to be so perfect, you know? Our friendship when we were kids, our high school romance, our engagement... it was a classic boy-gets-girl, girl-gets-bionics, girl-loses-memory, boy-loses-girl, girl-gets-her-memory-back and then boy-gets-girl story." She smiled ruefully.

Louise laughed and took off her sunglasses, aware that no really good conversation happened when eye contact was compromised. She was surprised that Jaime was so ready to talk.

"And it was great for the first year, but then it just stopped working. We thought we knew each other so well, but we knew nothing about being together as adults. We always played well together. It was everything else that got to be a problem."

"How do you mean?"

Jaime scratched her head and contemplated her wording. "It was like ... our expectations of each other were all out of whack. I think he found me demanding, and I found him remote. And then - and this sounds like a total contradiction - I wanted my independence and he didn't like that so much."

"Hmm. Old-fashioned-boy versus new-fashioned-girl?"

"I blame it on the bionics."

Louise raised her eyebrows.

"Mine, not his. I changed after that accident - apart from the obvious stuff like the aneurysm and memory loss and new limbs - between the bionics and the work with the OSI - my expectations of life and of myself changed. I turned into a much stronger, more independent person."

"... which is a good thing." Louise interjected.

"I hope so." Jaime responded, looking uncertain. "It didn't feel like it with Steve. He missed the old me. He is kind of an old-fashioned guy." Suddenly she looked apologetic. "Oh - I don't want to rag on him - he's a great guy."

"I know, Jaime." Louise affirmed quickly. "One of the best. Nice butt too."

Jaime laughed. Louise never ceased to surprise her. "Oh yeah," she agreed, "great butt." She plucked absently at the fringe of the blanket, the smile drifting from her face. "You know, one of the stupidest things - when we argued, we practically reverted to being twelve years old."

"You're kidding! _Siblings_ do that you know. I do it with my sister - particularly if we're both under stress. It's terrible."

"Well that's exactly it. He's more like a sibling." Jaime replied with emphasis. "So, there was a point when I think we both started wondering if we'd put all of our money on the wrong horse. You know, Steve's Mom was always telling us we were "made for each other" and "perfect together", and after all that, it didn't feel perfect at all."

Louise nodded thoughtfully.

"And then this leaves me wondering," Jaime added carefully, "have I missed the real thing, being all caught up in the Steve and Jaime fairy tale? What if the real thing just didn't look quite so perfect on the surface, but really was the right person?" She felt stupidly inarticulate. "Do you get what I mean?"

"Sure." Louise replied slowly, wondering if Jaime were speaking in general or specific terms.

Frowning, Jaime pulled the blanket up and wrapped her arms around her knees. "Then on the other hand, I'm starting to wonder if I have a thing for emotionally remote men."

_So there _is_ someone_. Louise thought, glancing down the deck, wondering just how nosy she should be. "Someone in particular?"

"Well, yeah." Jaime said haltingly.

"Anybody I know?"

"Oscar." She said it quickly, as you might choose to leap into cold water rather than wade in.

Louise's eyes widened, becoming almost perfect circles. "Oscar... _Goldman_?" she blurted.

"He's the only Oscar I know." Jaime replied, watching her friend. Rudy and Louise were the people closest to him, the likeliest to know the state of his mind and heart.

"You're in _love_ with Oscar?" This last sentence came out very quickly, as Louise sat up straight in her chair, her face slack with shock, her cheeks flushed. "Are you sure?!"

Jaime, though nervous about her revelation, couldn't help but smile at the intensity of her friend's expression. "Well, I get an ache in my heart every time I see him, and my brain turns to liquid and I shake and I can't put a sentence together. What do you make of that, Doctor?"

"Wow." Louise sat back with a frown, her eyes flicking around the deck as she made some mental calculation. "Does he know?" she asked.

"No. I don't think so." Louise's body language had suddenly changed from alert to reticent, and it sent a wave of anxiety through Jaime. She continued anyway - she so desperately needed her friend's perspective. "I was kind of hoping this trip might be my chance...though I have to figure out if it's even appropriate. I didn't want to go blasting out of the gate right after Steve and I split up, and then on top of that I'm worried that if I come on too strong I'm going to remind him of Lisa and freak him out completely. Or that he'll think it's just pity on my part."

Louise nodded.

"And I think he's been avoiding me since Steve told him about us. I've really only communicated with Russ in the last couple of months."

"Really?" Louise was still engaged in some mental sorting process, as though she were surrounded by piles of papers and she didn't know how to file them. "But when did this happen? I have to say, he hasn't been his most ... delightful... in the last while. Are you sure you're not on the rebound?" She gave Jaime a hard, searching look.

"Absolutely. I'm sure. I think a breakup has to be traumatic for a big rebound, doesn't it? Steve and I just kind of shook hands and called it a draw."

"I suppose." Louise conceded carefully. "Okay, well tell me, how did it happen? I'm still flabbergasted. I need details."

"It's kind of hard to explain," Jaime started, pushing her hair from her face with both hands. "I'm not sure I even get it myself. First off, Lisa made me see Oscar in a totally different way - I suppose that's not surprising. You know, I don't usually sit around thinking about other people's sex lives - especially my boss's. And Oscar would have us all believe he's immune to normal human needs - but when Lisa came along, suddenly he was exposed as a very passionate and vulnerable human being. Passionate about _me_. It was shocking, honestly, but a light went on - in a room in my head - a room I didn't even know was there. Know what I mean?"

"Oh, do I." Louise replied. "Rudy was one of those rooms for me."

"He was?" Jaime asked, her interest piqued. "Tell me."

"No, you finish first." Louise insisted, anxious to hear Jaime's story.

"No, really Louise, you first. I need a diversion. I've been driving myself nuts. In fact, I don't think I'll be able to carry on unless you tell me." Jaime said, with a melodramatic flourish.

"Hambone." Louise chuckled. "All right, all right! We met in grad school - we were part of a little gang that hung around together, studied together, drank together, that kind of thing. At the time I was madly in love with this..." she wrinkled her nose and shook her head, "_jerk_.. and I couldn't see Rudy for dust. He was just my pal - one of the gang."

Jaime grinned. "What was he like, this jerk?"

"He was a fellow student in the psych department, good looking of course - fancied himself a Renaissance man - recited poetry, canoed down the Amazon, climbed mountains..."

"Wow."

"Yeah, it looked good on paper, but he was a _jerk_. He was so completely dazzled by the shining light of his own glory that he couldn't even see me off in the shadows - me and the other four or five women he was dating at the time."

"Ooh - ouch."

"Yeah." Louise laughed. "And then there was Rudy - sweet, boyish, bookish, brilliant Rudy, waiting it out, gazing at me with those big sad brown eyes. You should have seen him, Jaime... he looked about fifteen, and he was _so_ shy. Having grown up in Montana I had some pretty set ideas about what men were supposed to look like. I wanted the Marlboro man with a university degree. Rudy was too scrubbed, too tame, too steady for me. I wanted drama. I wanted a man who could build his own cabin, make love to me, and then talk about Jung. You're so stupid when you're young. And I mean young as in youthful - not Jung as in Carl."

They laughed.

"So...how did you get together?"

"Well! He gave me a bit of drama! We were walking home together from an outing with friends - we'd had too much beer, I think - and I was moaning about my love life - when all of a sudden he kicked over a garbage can, told me that he loved me and that I was an idiot - and then he stormed off and didn't speak to me for a week."

"Really?" Jaime grinned. Somehow it was easy to picture. Despite that steady, sweet demeanor, Rudy could be startlingly passionate most often about his work - but she could well imagine that he was just the sort of young man who would kick over a garbage can to make a point to the girl he loved.

"Yup. And fortunately that flicked that light on in the room in my head, and I never looked back."

"Oh, that's wonderful." Jaime said with a slightly dreamy air. She was in a state of mind where she latched onto all happy endings and imagined them as her own.

"Okay. Now, back to you." Louise said impatiently, flapping her hand. "Are you saying you've been in love with Oscar throughout your relationship with Steve?"

"No." Jaime shook her head. "Well, yes and no. Let's just say I slammed the door to that room right away. I was pretty swoony about Steve at that point, so it wasn't too difficult."

"I just have to ask one more question," Louise interjected, "this really isn't some misplaced sense of responsibility for Lisa Galloway, is it?"

"No." Jaime replied confidently. "I've asked myself that a million times - not that I didn't feel horrible about that whole thing. I know it wasn't my fault, but I still feel like I set him up for it."

Louise nodded slowly. "Okay, I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced, but go on - how did that door open again?"

"Well, it started when I noticed that I got this pain - here -" she placed her hand on her breastbone, "every single time I saw him. At first I thought it was just that I felt badly for him, and guilty and all that, but after a while I recognized it was something more. This is going to sound odd - but I _missed _him; every time I saw him, I missed him, because whatever we had, the way he used to look at me, the jokes, the teasing, the rapport - it was all gone. I get that pain just thinking about it. I thought it would get better with time, but it never did. He's the kind of guy that subtly slips into your life and becomes important without your even knowing it, you know?"

"Absolutely."

"So, I still thought I was just missing my lost 'friend' and then it all became very clear..." she paused to give Louise a sheepish glance, "about four months ago. Steve and I went out for dinner at Lucio's, and we ran into Oscar and ... he was on a date."

"Of course!" Louise cried. "The date!"

"You knew about it?"

"Oh yeah - we'll get to that - go on."

Jaime gave her a long look, then continued. "So, as I guess you probably know, he invited us to join them, and I - Oh God - I was absolutely blindsided by jealousy. I couldn't believe it - it came right out of the blue. He was being so sweet to her and he was more like his old self, and right then and there it clicked - and all I could think was 'that's supposed to be for _me_', and I just ... I could barely talk the whole evening ... couldn't eat ... it was terrible. I had to tell Steve I had a migraine. I was completely blown out of the water. I walked around in a daze for about a week, and in that time I started to allow myself feel what had been there all along. I mean, he's always been my _man_, Louise." She said this with an intensity that left no doubt as to the strength of her conviction. "My backbone. But he was so damned quiet about it I never even knew. I can't tell you how often I've wanted to call him in the last two years, just to hear his voice, to talk to him - about anything - but I couldn't... because of that _... cow_." Jaime spat out the last word with uncharacteristic rancor. "Lisa, I mean."

"She really is out of the picture now, isn't she?"

"Oh yeah, apart from being a long way from parole, they barely got her old face back on her, and her plastic surgeon says if she tries surgery again she won't have any features left at all."

"Ew." said Louise, grimacing. "You know, that date..." she added, clearing her throat in preparation for a confession, "she's a friend of mine."

"You're kidding!" Jaime was momentarily, irrationally angry.

"No - sorry." Louise laughed apologetically. "I had no idea. I set them up - told him it would be good for him, and to my surprise he went along with it."

"Are they... are they still seeing each other?" This was the question Jaime most wanted to ask Louise, and she was terrified of the answer.

Louise paused. "No. That was the last one."

"Oh..." Jaime sighed, her eyes widening with relief. She bit her lip and looked to her friend. "You know, Louise, I was kind of hoping that when I told you how I feel about him you'd start jumping up and down because maybe everything could finally be perfect and we would live happily ever after."

"Oh, Jaime," Louise replied, reaching out to squeeze her friend's arm, "it would gladden my heart more than you can imagine to see something work out between the two of you. It's just..." Louise shook her head and frowned.

"What?" Jaime asked anxiously, feeling a sick sensation roll over her.

"It's - it's well... you know that Rudy and I spent a lot of time with him in that first year trying to help him through the whole thing."

"Yeah...?" Was Louise going to tell her that he had had a change of heart?

"He was so terribly raw, but I thought he was doing pretty well, all things considered, and then he started rebuilding his defenses - and saying was that nothing like this would ever happen to him again, because he wouldn't allow it. And since then he's clammed up completely, and we haven't had a real, heartfelt conversation for almost a year."

Jaime swallowed.

"And you know," Louise continued, her expression troubled, "I've never met anyone who has the capacity he has for self discipline. I'm worried he really meant it. I'm worried he won't allow himself."

"Yeah, I'm worried about that too. I was kind of hoping you were going to say that just one push and he'll jump straight into my arms."

"Well, he might, but he might not, and I don't want you to get hurt. You know, what Lisa did was reinforce in Oscar two of his most unproductive ideas about himself. First, that he has to live like a clam because his work is too dangerous and he can't trust a living soul, which is essentially an excuse for the second and _real_ reason that underneath it all he's convinced that he's unlovable."

That statement sent a stab of pain through Jaime's heart. She hugged her knees tighter, as though she were hugging Oscar. "I could disabuse him of that idea." she said sadly.

"What pains me most is that he knows Lisa hated him, and that while he was falling in love with her - with you - finally opening up, she was essentially mocking him the whole time - exacting her revenge."

"I know, it makes me sick - oh my God," Jaime said, stiffening as she looked over Louise's shoulder. "Here he comes. Let's see if he pulls some kind of a dodge when he sees me."

Louise turned to look at him. "Let's wave." They waved. Oscar waved in return, and then - sure enough he crossed the fore deck to the other side of the ship.

Louise turned back to her companion, frowning, her mouth open.

"Yup. He's avoiding me." Jaime said, fighting the hollow sense of rejection that was gnawing more and more often at her innards. She pressed her face so hard into her knees that her nose buckled.

"Well, that's rotten of him," Louise said, shaking her head, "but of course, sensitive people sometimes need to grow a thick shell just so they can get on with life. And Oscar, like so many men, is completely befuddled by emotional hardship that he doesn't handle it well."

"It's hopeless, isn't it?" Jaime said mournfully, her voice half muffled due to the fact she was speaking into her knees.

"Oh, honey, don't look so glum! Don't give up!" It hadn't been Louise's intention to encourage Jaime too much - the whole affair seemed very fraught, but somehow she couldn't stop herself. "You know what?"

"What?"

"My friend Carol, the one I set him up with, broke it off the night of that dinner because, as she told me, she saw no point in dating anyone who was so clearly hung up on another woman."

"She said that?" Jaime asked, perking up. "And she thought he was hung up on me?"

"She sure did." Louise suppressed a smile, reaching for Jaime's arm. "And - I have to tell you this - she said she couldn't understand it, because you had to be one of the most sullen people she'd ever met. I told her she must have been mistaken, that it couldn't have been you."

Jaime let out a rueful laugh. "Oh, yeah, that was me. Would you apologize to her for me?"

"Of course."

"So..." Jaime was feeling flushed and her heart rate was rising. Trying to keep her voice steady, she said, "he's 'hung up' on me. I wish I could tell. I wish I felt more sure. Mostly he makes me feel repellent."

"Jaime," Louise said slowly, staring up at the seagulls wheeling over head, "I don't want you to get hurt, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. I haven't spent any time with you and Oscar together - only apart - but I've always thought there was something there - I don't even think I could really put it into words, but there's some commonality between you two. When I'm with one of you, I often think of the other and I couldn't even say why. It's something..." she shrugged and smiled, "ineffable."

"Really? Ineffable." Jaime repeated this word as though it were precious. She smiled and sighed, swinging her feet to the ground. "Thanks Louise. I guess I'd better go. I wish I could just hang out with you and gossip and read."

"I wish that too. Let's try to get together for nightcaps - or coffee breaks or something, okay?"

Jaime arranged her blanket over Louise's feet. "Roger." she said. "You've cheered me up. Thanks."


	3. Chapter 3

TWO was eager to complete his project. Taking his time, he roamed to the designated drop off spots and picked up the bits of plastic, wiring and explosives that had been left for him. It was like putting a puzzle together. He had never built a bomb before, but he was confident he could do it - he was an engineer after all. The real trick was to build it without being detected.

**--**

At ten a.m., Jaime was sitting just behind the Secretary of State as he opened the conference. Ballroom One had been given over to this purpose, and was now filled with scientists, politicians and bureaucrats, seated at tables arranged in concentric circles. Around the perimeter stood at least fifty security people, and there were doubtless many more disguised as the ship's crew. She realized that the passengers were likely outnumbered by crew and security by a large margin.

The morning passed without incident. Though Jaime was interested in some of the topics for the day, she quickly became bogged down by scientific terminology, so she amused herself instead by eavesdropping on the little whisperings that sprang up around the room during the lectures. Though she felt a touch devious it was a sanctioned activity, as she had specific instructions to listen for anything that might raise an alarm. In the afternoon, feeling sleepy, she compensated by drinking too much coffee which in turn made her jittery and anxious. This was only made worse by the presence of Oscar opposite her. She found herself able to watch him at length without being noticed. _He's just a guy - _she told herself, _and a grouchy, worn-out looking one at that_. Restless and edgy, he would to listen to the speaker for a few minutes at a time, then check his watch and look around the room, shift in his seat and cross and uncross his arms. Finally his eyes met hers and he gave her a flat half smile, which she returned, her heart jumping. Then he looked away.

At cocktail hour the group moved to Ballroom Two, joined by spouses and the ship's officers. Though Jaime had hoped she might find some excuse to sidle up to Oscar, she couldn't find him anywhere, and so instead she spent most of her time hovering around the Wilsons, slipping away a couple of times for few happy moments with Rudy and Louise.

Everyone dressed for the formal dinner in the huge dining room. She sat with the Wilsons, and spent the meal listening to Greta Wilson drone on about the parties she and her husband threw, the food they served, the inadequacy of the chandelier cleaner they had hired, and the imported Irish linens that she personally made sure were used on every table - the inference being that dinner at the Secretary's residence was infinitely more elegant than the meager offerings aboard this ship. Greta was an elegant looking woman, with watery blue eyes and a long nose - a woman clearly accustomed to a life of privilege. Jaime couldn't decide whether she liked her or not. Though Douglas also seemed like someone extremely comfortable in the upper echelons, she liked him very much. He was tall and very thin, with white hair, a strong jaw and black horn rimmed glasses, though which peered blue eyes very similar to his wife's. He was clearly an intelligent man, and had a defiant willfulness to him that Jaime identified with. He tried valiantly to interject some more interesting content into his wife's monologue, but she ignored him in the way people often do when they've been together a long time.

Worn out by a day of intense listening, polite socializing, and emotional highs and lows, Jaime gratefully turned in at ten, reading a little before she falling asleep sitting up, book open on her lap.

--

Oscar breathed a sigh of relief when at last he reached his room just after midnight. Easing himself onto his bed, he picked up the headphones from his bedside table and hit the 'play' button on the tape deck. He closed his eyes as the first chords of Bach's _Alles Mit Gott_ met his ears, as they did every night. In a life that featured too much responsibility, too much chaos and so little joy, baroque music was the one thing that gave him a sense of order, reason, and beauty. For an hour every night, Oscar's mind became quiet.

--

FOUR walked the decks all night in a state of anxiety, hovering around lifeboats. There were too many people around and it was far too quiet for him to have a chance to do his job. He would have to wait until daylight.

--

The next day passed in much the same way for Jaime, to her frustration. When first she learned about the mission she was thrilled - it meant four days at sea in a contained space with Oscar. Surely she would be able to spend a moment or two with him, to see if she could get him to open up to her just a little bit, but now it seemed it was not to be. He avoided her as deftly as if there was an entire continent between them. The situation was beginning to remind her of a secret crush she had on a boy in her senior year of high school. For the entire fall term Jaime religiously detoured through the halls of the high school so she could pass by his locker at least ten times a day. She tried to schedule her classes to match his, and even joined the debating club because he was a member. She hated debating club. And it was all to no avail; he wasn't remotely interested in her. Then one day he had called her friend Sheri 'a dog', and that promptly ended her crush. Oscar was not going to give her an easy out like that, unfortunately. She knew him too well, knew his integrity and his kindness. She could not be so easily disillusioned.

Apart from her romantic frustrations, Jaime couldn't quite kick the notion that there was something wrong with the whole trip. She had heard nothing and seen nothing that would suggest anything sinister, but she felt it - between her shoulder blades - like an itch she couldn't quite reach. Though she had developed a healthy respect for her instincts over the years, she decided she was inventing it. She was too discombobulated in general, too preoccupied to be clear headed. It was just Oscar getting to her.

--

The bomb was coming together nicely in the lower section of the engine room, discreetly hidden below the bulkhead. With any luck, it would blow a hole in the ship so large the whole thing would go down in a few short minutes. TWO was disturbed that he could not put a concentrated effort into it - that he had to snatch moments here and there, making sure all the time that he was not seen to be doing anything unusual. This was not conducive to thoroughness, and he was behind schedule. As with all transatlantic passages, the ship was moving in an arc, up from England to the North Altantic and then down the east coast of North America. It would have been perfect to explode it tonight after everyone had gone to bed, when they were the furthest from any populated landmass - but he wasn't sure he could pull it off in time.

--

Louise was already asleep, lying on her back with the covers pulled up to her nose, as was her habit. Her husband, however, wasn't quite ready to turn in for the night. He quietly slipped on his jacket and plucked the room key from his bedside table. After twenty-two years of marriage he should have realized he could never be quiet enough for Louise was the world's lightest sleeper. Her eyes snapped open when she heard the light clink of metal in his hand.

"What are you doing?" she asked, looking startled.

"I thought I'd take a stroll around the deck."

"Is the ol' brain on overdrive?" she asked, smiling affectionately.

He nodded and returned her smile. "Afraid so."

"All right, Love. Try not to stay up too late though. You need your beauty sleep."

He nodded his assent and slipped out of the room, locking the door behind him.

It was cold on the boat deck, colder than he expected. He pulled the collar of his jacket up and ambled in the direction of the bow. There were men in dark suits all over the place - Oscar's handiwork, no doubt.

Rudy was enjoying this trip immensely. It was not so much the conference itself as the presence of an exciting group of colleagues - people who lived and breathed science and treasured the thrill of discovery as much as he did. Already he was itching to get back to his lab. More than hard knowledge or specific data, his fellow scientists gave him something much more valuable - inspiration. He could always do more. He could always do better. He'd never been a very politically minded person, and he regarded his involvement with the OSI as a means of advancing knowledge - shedding light in dark corners. _The more we know as a species, the more we beat back ignorance, the better the world will be._ As he had once confessed to Oscar over a late night scotch, his contribution to the security of his country was of secondary interest to him. Oscar had laughed and said, "And this is news?"

The sound of the water pulled Rudy to the railing near a lifeboat. He gazed at the white foam fanning out from the bow, mesmerized by the beauty of the sea in the very same way people have been since they first set boats into water. His reverie was suddenly interrupted by a man who suddenly squeezed out from between the lifeboat and the railing, almost bumping into him.

"Who are you?" the man blurted accusingly, in a British accent.

"I could ask you the same thing." Rudy replied, his tone light, a slight smile on his face. He had always found it best to approach suspicious behavior with an appearance of perfect innocence.

"I'm sorry." the man said, immediately becoming more polite. "I'm with British security." He drew his conference badge from his jacket and showed it to Rudy, who could see only a laminated rectangle in the dark.

"Well, I'm Dr. Rudy Wells." he replied, in turn waving his pass in front of the man.

"Ah." the man nodded. "The American genius." It was hard to make out the man's face, but there was something weird in his manner, something edgy, even angry.

"What, ah... what were you doing?" Rudy inquired, trying hard not to sound too nosy.

"Well, it's a special assignment." he said, leaning into Rudy as though he was taking him into his confidence. "One of our chemists, Dr. Llewellyn, has a bit of a phobia about ocean travel, and I promised her I would personally check the lifeboats every night to make sure they were safe."

"Well, that's nice of you." Rudy replied.

"We like our people to be happy. Speaking of which, I must move on."

Rudy watched him march off down the deck, and then he turned his attention back to the water. He could just make out the endless horizon of sea against sky. Rather than make him feel small and afraid, instead it filled him with awe - for the beauty and the mystery of the great world around him.


	4. Chapter 4

After lunch on the third day, Jaime decided to take a stroll around the main deck for some fresh air before settling in to the afternoon session. She relished these moments alone, away from science and small talk. On her second lap around the circumference of the ship she was startled to see Oscar and Louise in an intense conference thirty yards in front of her. Louise was leaning in to Oscar, practically standing on tiptoes. She looked angry. Oscar had his arms crossed, standing at his full height, glowering. Jaime initially resisted the urge to eavesdrop, but once Louise started poking Oscar in the chest with her index finger, her resolve crumbled.

"You know what gets me?" Louise hissed, "I still remember sitting on that couch with you, the morning after that whole Lisa Galloway thing blew up, and you said, 'I was happy. For once I was truly happy.' And now you've just given up on yourself! It's a _betrayal_, do you hear me? A betrayal of that man who had a heart ... who had the _guts_ to take a risk!" Oscar irritably pushed her battering finger from his chest as though he were brushing away a fly.

"Be a mensch, Oscar." she spat.

"What - so you're my mother now?!"

"Well, what would your mother think of you - turning your back on your best chance at happiness?"

"I don't think she'd want me to spend my life chasing some ... fantasy ... nineteen years my junior!"

"I tell you," Louise retorted, stabbing his chest again, "if she could see her middle aged son cowering from life and drinking too much..."

"Cowering!" Oscar repeated, pulling his chin in as though he'd been slapped. " And I do not drink too much." he added slowly, anger in his voice.

Louise made a dismissive, sputtering noise. "Don't even try that with me. Besides - your mother would love Jaime. Who doesn't love Jaime?"

"Look." Oscar's voice took on a menacing edge. "I truly appreciate everything you've done for me Louise, but you have got the wrong idea. I am not in love with Jaime Sommers. A long way from it. She is my agent and that is all. I've been treated with what you psychologists call _aversion therapy_. One look at her and I feel sick to my stomach. I know she's a fine person and I shouldn't feel this way, but the truth is I can't stand the sight of her. So you see, you're beating a dead horse. And I can't waste anymore of my time having this ridiculous conversation with you."

Each of his words hit Jaime like blows. She could feel her heart shrinking in her body. When she tried to take a breath it stopped in her throat.

Louise replied - something angry and emphatic - but Jaime couldn't hear it for precisely at that moment the ship's horn let out a mighty blast, making her bionic ear ring and rattle. Louise shook her head, took two steps back from Oscar, turned, and marched furiously in Jaime's direction. As she drew closer it was obvious just how upset she was - her face was red and there were tears in her eyes. Jaime quickly ducked under a staircase and once Louise had passed, she headed for her cabin. Oscar was gone - thank god.

Her hands shook as she fumbled with the key in the lock, pushed the door open and threw herself down on her narrow bed. She thought she was going to cry, but she didn't. In fact she felt completely hollow - dark, cold and empty. It was the blank feeling that comes with shock - a strange calm before the storm. She stared at the ceiling lamp for many minutes, noting that one of the screws that held the glass shade in place was silver rather than brass. Suddenly hit with the urge to torture herself, she reached over to the book sitting by her bedside table, pulling from it a precious scrap of paper, folded neatly in the middle. She would look at it once more and then throw it away.

She held the thin white sheet up to read it for the umpteenth time. The familiar handwriting was, as always, difficult to read, made worse by the fact that it had been written on an uneven surface.

_MFA -_ (This stood for "Most Favored Agent")

_I ought to know better than to arrive unannounced. I drove all the way from LA to see you and you AREN'T HERE! Feel bad? Good._

_I am attempting to make the OSI a nicer place to work, and you get to be the first to try our new feature - Pick-A-Mission! Choose from the following:_

_a. Learn the Cyrillic alphabet and become secretary to Leonid Brezhnev.  
_

_b. Join Russian circus as snake trainer, with your own herd of intelligence-gathering boa constrictors._

_c. Court and marry Argentinian dictator, send all intelligence back to OSI until he dies, or until the coup d'etat, whichever comes first._

_d. Have dinner with the Director of the OSI tomorrow night._

_They're all dangerous and they're all unpleasant. I know you'll choose the right one. I'll call you in the morning._

_xo_

_Oscar_

He had driven all the way from LA just to see her. He had written that note, (which was giddy in a way she would never have expected of him) likely sitting on the front step looking vaguely ridiculous - a big, important man in a good suit, hunched over, writing a love letter disguised as a joke on a slip of paper on the pavement.

A month ago, while separating her possessions from Steve's, Jaime had come across this note in a book - something she'd read a few years before. Obviously back then she had thought the note was worth keeping, had used it as a bookmark, and then forgotten about it when she finished the book. Rediscovering it, this somehow seemed a betrayal - a symptom of the way she had always treated Oscar, how she had taken him for granted and had regarded his unspoken devotion as a pleasant, if unremarkable part of the landscape of her life. She accepted his affections and then tucked them away and forgot them. He was her 'background man'. All these years, he had stood behind her, watched her romances, large and small - with Steve, with Chris, the smaller flirtations she'd had with men she'd met on missions, and all the while he was there - waiting - smiling, supportive, only the tiniest hint of jealousy flashing in his brown eyes - and just when she had finally come to her senses, had finally realized he was the man she truly wanted - he didn't want her.

She pressed the note to her forehead and wept. She didn't want to cry - but the blank feeling had just given way to profound sadness, and now there was no stopping the tears. She had never felt more alone or more unwanted. In a few minutes she was going to have to go up on deck again, and her eyes would be red and she'd have to invent something about an allergy. The hot tears rolled down her cheeks, cooling as they trickled into her ears.

Half an hour later she had pulled herself together and returned to the conference, having splashing some cold water on her face, combed her hair and put on some particularly showy earrings, hoping they might provide a distraction from her puffy eyes. She wasn't a very good agent that afternoon, utterly crushed, staring at her lap, intently keeping her gaze from the frowning, fidgety, dark haired man seated across from her.

--

FOUR couldn't believe his luck. There were a dozen or so men at the stern on the ship shooting skeets in the late afternoon. Even with security swarming everywhere, he was able stand on the upper deck, nicely hidden by a large vent, and shoot holes in four of the lifeboats without being noticed. This gave him some small measure of relief, but he was still far behind. Perhaps he would have to count on the mayhem created after the bomb went off to sabotage the others.

--

"What's the matter dear?" Greta Wilson asked Jaime during cocktail hour, patting her arm kindly.

"Oh! Nothing!" Jaime replied, overcompensating for her gloomy mood with a forced cheerfulness. "I'm probably just a little tired. Listening to scientists all day gets to you after awhile."

"I don't doubt it." Greta acknowledged with a serious nod.

Jaime was now not only avoiding Oscar, but Louise too. She was pretty sure that if they got together the subject would turn to him, and she didn't want Louise to know that she had heard that whole horrible conversation and it was clear she wouldn't be able to convincingly pretend she was fine. But then, it was possible Louise wanted to avoid her too - maybe she didn't want to be the one to have to tell Jaime the cold, hard truth. So Jaime yet again stuck close to the Wilsons, politely chatting and smiling to all who gravitated into that circle. Could any of them tell how heavy her heart really was?


	5. Chapter 5

TWO had just a couple of small, delicate adjustments to make on the bomb. It was set to go off at midnight. Now if he could just do these last tiny touches without blowing himself to kingdom come...

--

At dinner Rudy and Louise were seated next to Dr. Elizabeth Llewellyn and her husband, David. They were fine company and conversation was lively, so it wasn't until later that Rudy remembered his encounter with the British security man on deck the night before. When he mentioned it to Dr. Llewellyn, she looked surprised.

"I don't have a phobia about ocean travel." she said, mystified. "In fact I enjoy it. And I've never had a conversation with any member of our security team - much less about my phobias!"

Rudy frowned. "Well, David, could it have been you that talked to him?"

"Heavens no! I was in the Navy for a spell!" he said with a laugh. "I can't imagine what that chap was talking about."

Rudy turned to Louise. "I think I should tell Oscar about this." He excused himself, circulating around the entire dining room in search of the Director of the OSI, who was nowhere to be seen. Then Rudy remembered that Oscar was due to give his talk tonight - he would tell him then.

--

When Greta asked her to fetch a wrap from the cabin Jaime did so with mild resentment. Even though Greta knew full well that Jaime was a federal agent only _posing_ to be Douglas Wilson's personal assistant, she had quickly come to think of Jaime as her own personal assistant. Choosing to take her time on the way back with a little detour onto the main deck, Jaime threw the wrap over her arm, locked the Wilson's cabin and made her way outside. It was a beautiful clear night, still and starry, perhaps the warmest they had yet, though in the north Atlantic 'warm' was a relative concept. Despite the clement weather, there was only on person outside, gazing down at the wake churning off the bow. It was Oscar, deep in thought. Her heart dropped from her chest to her stomach, and she dearly wished he didn't cut quite such a handsome figure in his black suit. She momentarily considered avoiding him and taking the indoor route back to the dining room, but then decided she wasn't going to play that same dodging game he had perfected.

"Thinking serious thoughts?" Jaime asked, a little too brightly. He jumped. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to scare you."

"That's all right." he said, folding some papers and stuffing them into his pocket. Oscar frowned as he looked at her. There was a kind of sad shine in her eyes that made his heart clench. "Is everything going all right?" he asked in an officious manner.

"Sure, yeah. Greta Wilson seems to like having me around. I'm her errand girl." Jaime tentatively walked closer and leaned against the railing. What had once been an easy and charming rapport between them was now brittle and uncomfortable. Jaime grieved the loss every time they spoke - and right now the grief caused a lump to rise in her throat.

He made a sympathetic clicking sound with his tongue. "Well, I'm pretty sure Greta has never picked up her own socks, let's put it that way." His tone of voice was almost lifeless, as though he were making obligatory chit-chat with a dull stranger, but his brain nonetheless registered that Jaime was looking especially beautiful with that tinge of sadness about her, wearing a shimmery silver dress with a low v-neck. Before he could take hold of himself, he found himself imagining what it would be like to hold her close, slip that dress off one shoulder and to plunge his lips to her bare white...

"No security concerns?" he blurted, feeling a flare of resentment toward Louise, who had knocked him seriously off kilter this afternoon.

Jaime noted his expression as he spoke to her, and it seemed to be a chain of conflicting emotions, flicking through his eyes, changing every moment, passing too quickly for her to decipher.

"Not really." she said slowly. "I've had a weird sense of... I don't know ... 'dread' is too strong a word...concern? Worry? I can't put my finger on it, and I can't tell whether I should take it seriously or not."

"I've been feeling that too." he replied, looking uneasy.

Jaime couldn't help but let out a little laugh. "Of course you have! That's your specialty."

He looked down with a small rueful smile that made her heart jump. She had just teased him and he had almost looked like he enjoyed it.

"So..." she added, reminding herself that he couldn't stand the sight of her, which instantly made her miserable again, "what are you doing out here all by yourself?"

"I - have to give this talk in a few minutes." Oscar replied, patting his pocket. He had drunk too much at dinner, hoping it would soothe his nerves. It had calmed him some, but now he was regretting it - especially in light of that remark Louise had made. "I don't like making speeches."

"Oh, you'll do - " Jaime was interrupted by a sound - a sound that stopped the words in her throat. A thunderous boom, heavy and ominous, shuddered the entire ship from stem to stern, emanating from somewhere deep underneath them, rattling the fixtures, the windows, the deck chairs. Instinctively they reached for each other, and stood pressed together - stunned, horrified, frozen. When the sound of the blast faded from the air, the hum of the ship's engines had stopped, as had the music and happy chatter from the dining room. There was a moment of almost perfect silence.

"My God - " Oscar whispered finally, "we need to get to the bridge." He ran three paces before he realized Jaime was not beside him. When he turned, he saw her clutching her left ear, hunched over, her face fixed in horror. He ran back and grasped her by the shoulders. "What is it?" he asked in alarm.

She stared at him through haunted eyes. "Screaming... the men below..." she gasped, " Oscar, it's _terrible_. I have to go help!" She pulled away from him and began to back up.

"Jaime - " he said in an even tone, holding his hands out to her, beckoning her to him, "you don't know your way around down there. It was probably the engine room - it's worse than a rabbit warren. The men will help each other - better than you can. You can hear them, can't you? Calling to each other?"

She nodded slowly, her eyes still wide.

"Please, Jaime, I need you here. We have to look at the big picture - there are hundreds of lives at stake. I _need_ you - please."

He was approaching her carefully, as though she was a deer who might bound off at any moment. She reached for his hands, trying to shake off the horror of what she had just heard. She took a couple of large and deliberate breaths to steady herself, looking hard into Oscar's eyes. He held her gaze, his eyes willing them both to be strong.

"Okay." she nodded. "Let's go."

People began pouring out of the dining room, all voicing the same anxious questions, as Jaime and Oscar raced to the front of the ship and up the stairs.

They burst into the bridge to find several officers shouting in alarm.

"It's the port side, Sir!"

"We have no engine power, Sir!"

The captain shouted for quiet as he hovered over a junior officer who was calling into a telephone.

"Engine Room Two - do you read me? Do you read me?!"

Seated in the corner the radio operator hunched over his equipment, broadcasting the distress call.

Oscar and Jaime walked straight to the Captain. "We need to get those passengers into lifeboats, Captain." Oscar said, in his take-charge tone.

The Captain looked at him and frowned. "I'd like to assess the situation first, Mr. Goldman."

"There's no time." Oscar insisted. "They need to get off this ship now."

"We don't even know what the damage is." the Captain replied, his eyes flashing. "I assure you I have no intention of endangering my passengers, and that means I am not going to put them into open boats in the North Atlantic before I know what's going on."

"With all due respect, Captain," Jaime interjected, "_The Lusitania_ sank in eighteen minutes."

Oscar looked at her in amazement, and she shrugged subtly. She'd done a book report on _The Golden Age of Trans-Atlantic Travel_ in eleventh grade.

"Eighteen minutes, Captain." Oscar repeated.

"Do you feel that?" Jaime placed her hand on Oscar's elbow and looked to her feet, her heart beginning to race.

Oscar caught on immediately. "We're listing ... to port."

Looking from one to the other, his expression now profoundly alarmed, the Captain nodded. "First Officer Mundy, I want those lifeboats launched in ten minutes."

"Ten minutes! Aye Sir." called Mundy.

"This has to be an attack, Gentlemen." Oscar said to both of them. "I want you to make sure that there is an officer on each lifeboat, and that he is armed, along with at least two of my security people. They'll be stationed by the boats as they launch."

"Very good."

"Do you know what happened?"

"No - we've lost communication with engine rooms one and two." the Captain replied, grim faced. "A Canadian Navy ship is on the way and should arrive in an hour." He was looking very pale. "I just hope it's soon enough."

--

Rudy and Louise had returned to their room after dinner, primarily so Louise could put on a light jacket, as they planned to return to the ballroom to hear Oscar's talk. Louise was not particularly interested, but she would go to show a supportive face - even though she was still infuriated with her old friend.

The explosion knocked both of them off their feet - Louise flopped backward onto the bed and Rudy was thrown into the wall. Instantly they sensed the magnitude of the situation. Louise quickly changed from evening wear into warm clothing and they ran to the ship's hospital, where they took from the attending doctor two large first aid kits, and made their way up to the deck to see where they could help.

--

By the time Oscar and Jaime returned to the boat deck, large numbers of people were grouped together along the railings. Crew members moved among the crowd, informing them of evacuation procedures, while others hurriedly uncovered the lifeboats. As the angle of the deck became more obvious, panic crept into the air. The murmuring of the crowd took on an edge, punctuated by small shrieks and angry outbursts.

"What would you like me to do?" Jaime asked as Oscar surveyed the situation. Her every nerve was jangling. More than anything else she wanted to seek out the source of the horrible screams she had heard - she didn't think she could live with herself if she didn't try to do something.

It took Oscar a moment to respond - to sort through the pile of conflicting priorities and choose one. "I want you to go and open every door to every cabin on this ship. The purser can run around with his keys, but you'll be faster. There are always people who manage to sleep through something like this. Just break the doors open and keep moving. Go as fast as you can. We don't have long. And then I'm worried about the starboard side lifeboats - I don't know if there's anything we'll be able to do, but come back up as soon as you can."

"What do you mean?" she asked, with a puzzled frown.

"When the ship lists they won't clear the side as they launch. We'll try to get them off right away, but I think it's going to become difficult in a matter of minutes."

"But what about the men in the engine room?" she blurted.

"After half of the boats have been launched, we'll get down there." Oscar said in an appeasing tone, placing his hands on her shoulders. "Anybody who can get out of the engine rooms right away will. I'll make sure the Captain has issued the order to abandon posts. I can go with you. I know my way around engine rooms - but we have to get those boats loaded up first, okay?"

She could tell from the look in his eyes that he didn't even expect that she would obey him - only that he hoped she would.

"You got it Boss." she said, and she turned to leave.

"Babe..." he caught her arm, and she felt a thrill of warmth. It had been so long since he'd called her Babe.

"I know." she nodded, smiling. "I'll be careful."

As methodically as she could, dodging panicked passengers loaded with luggage, Jaime worked her way through the corridors, twisting locked door handles as easily as you might twist a cap off a bottle. Following Oscar's orders, she didn't go in and roust anyone out, but she did yell a lot. The pursers, running up and down the hallways, clutching keys, looked at her alternately with gratitude and befuddlement.

Shortly after she began her task, the sliding sounds started. Small objects, left on tables or put on shelves, began to fall. Her journey was accompanied by tinkles, smashes and thuds. As the angle of the ship changed in the water, she found she needed to put one hand out to the wall to steady herself as she ran down the hallways. The noises quickly became a continuous percussive accompaniment, and then louder as larger objects began to tip and slide.

On her final pass through crew quarters, she happened upon a man leaving his cabin, clutching what looked like an inflatable raft. Somehow Jaime knew immediately that this man was suspect - it was that feeling between the shoulder blades. This time, she listened to it.**  
**

"Hey!" she called to him as he scurried down the hallway. FOUR looked over his shoulder and broke into a trot, simultaneously fumbling for the gun in his coat pocket. Jaime didn't give him the chance. She grabbed him and flung him so hard against the wall she knocked him out instantly. Scooping up the raft, she ran back upstairs.

She arrived up top to find that the level of panic had increased considerably. The remaining passengers, those who hadn't yet left in the lifeboats that now dotted the dark waters around the ship, were collected on the port side. The angle of the deck was now steep enough to make it an uphill battle to walk to the starboard side. All things considered, the evacuation was proceeding in a relatively orderly fashion, but nonetheless the last of the crew was kept busy trying to suppress the anger, indignation, hysteria and physical violence that were breaking out here and there amongst the passengers. Jaime handed the raft off to an officer and went in search of Oscar.

There was all manner of noise coming from the ship now - dishes smashing, chairs skidding across floors, furniture tumbling over. Her ears ringing uncomfortably with loud and sharp sounds, the panic of her fellow passengers filtering into her own heart, she frantically searched the entire port side before she thought to look up to starboard, where she immediately spotted him up above her, with crew and a few intrepid passengers. As she had kicked off her high heels earlier, she nimbly ran barefoot up the incline to meet him.

"Oscar!" she called. Without hesitation, as though he had been expecting her, he turned and extended one hand, while hanging on to the deck railing with the other. She grasped it gratefully and he pulled her up. As she stood by him, holding the rail, she suddenly realized that it simply didn't matter what he had said to Louise about her that afternoon, and it didn't matter that she had thought she would never be able to look him in the eye again. This crisis had neatly cleared away all of the noise between them. She loved him and she was standing beside him, and that was all that was important.

The crew was in the process of launching the last lifeboat on the starboard side. It was empty. Even though the davits were fully extended, it scraped the side of the ship loudly and turned sideways as it descended, landing like a scoop in the water. It filled immediately and dropped into the inky depths.

"Damn it." Oscar murmured anxiously.

"I think I ran into a bad guy." Jaime said, breathing hard. "He had an inflatable raft."

"Did you grab him?"

"No." she replied, suddenly feeling foolish. "I figured I had other fish to fry. I'd recognize him if I saw him again though. I did get the raft."

"Good. You did the right thing."

"I opened every door I could find. How are things going up here?"

His eyes were dark and slightly wild. "Some of the lifeboats have been sabotaged - that one included." He gestured to the spot where the lifeboat had just sunk. "We put them in anyway in case people end up in the water and need something to hang on to. I just hope to God we can get everyone off."

"Who would do this? It's so horrible!"

"I've been wondering the same thing. I tell you Jaime, if this ship were full to capacity..." he shook his head. "Damn it - I had security _everywhere_."

It suddenly occurred to Jaime that he was holding himself responsible for the entire disaster unfolding around them. "Oscar," she said earnestly, squeezing his forearm, "you did everything you could. I thought you were crazy - there was so much security on this ship. You can't cover everything. It's not _possible_. This is _not _your fault."

His eyes searched hers anxiously. She could see that he wanted to be relieved of the guilt. "Innocent people are going to die, Jaime."

There was nothing she could say to this. Instead she ran her hand down his arm, placed it over his hand, and turned to watch the scene in front of her. The ship had already dropped even lower in the water, the deck angling up higher. There were now only three lifeboats remaining to be launched on the port side.

"Almost everybody is gone." she said. "Maybe everyone is going to get off okay. I still want to go down to the engine room though." she added, with a tone of defiance in her voice. "There are people trapped down there - I know it."

"Could you go see if you can get Rudy and Louise the hell out of here? They're being difficult." Oscar asked. "I'm going to talk to the Captain - find out what's been going on below." Jaime nodded, and they skittered down the deck together.

Rudy and Louise had been contending with multitudes of minor injuries, mostly caused by falling objects. At first there had been a steady stream of passengers needing some form of care, but now those remaining were more intent on getting onto lifeboats than dealing with cuts and bruises. Jaime tried to insist they get onto one of the three remaining lifeboats, but Louise shook her head.

"We'll all go together." she said, her eyes steely with resolution.

Jaime looked around. Another lifeboat had just been launched, full to the brim. There were now two left. Casting her eyes further she saw Oscar speaking to the Captain, and without a second thought she listened in.

"There's nothing more we can do." the Captain was saying. "Most of the boys are out, but the watertight doors on the Number Two bulkheads came down before some of them could escape."

"And that's the only exit?" Oscar asked. "The watertights? Isn't there another set at the top of the bulkheads?"

"Yes - " returned the Captain. "but they're also watertights, also shut. They can only be opened when you have full operational power. We're on battery power - there's no way we can get them open. And even if we could - what if the compartments are completely flooded? With another breach the ship will go down in a minute."

"It may be going down in a minute anyway."

Jaime couldn't wait - Oscar was going to tell her it was hopeless. There were three engine rooms, she was in the middle of the ship, so Engine Room Two must be directly below her. Without a word, she dashed up the incline to the set of doors leading to the staircase. She heard Rudy and Louise calling to her as she reached the stairwell - panic in their voices - and though she felt a pang of remorse she kept moving.

She took the stairs four at a time. Down and down she went. The air became heavy with smoke and she could hear water rushing somewhere disturbingly close by. Pausing for a moment she held her breath and listened. There were voices - desperate, hopeless voices coming from somewhere ... to the left and below. The next set of stairs lead her to a door which had a sign on it that read _Upper Bulkhead Two_. Passing though it she found herself into a short, featureless hallway, and in the middle of that corridor there was another door on the right - this one huge, made of riveted iron. This had to be it. There was no handle, nothing for her to take hold of. She ran her hands along it, listening. She had found the source of the voices - just behind the door. Drawing back her arm, she let go with a mighty punch, knocking a deep depression into the surface. Taking careful aim, she did the same again, deepening the depression further. Using her improvised handle, she pulled hard to the left. Nothing happened. She pulled hard to the right - still nothing. She paused, swept her hair from her eyes, and pulled up. The door, monumentally heavy, inched upward. Smoke billowed out from under the opening, and just as soon as there was enough space, a man slipped out on his belly, followed by two more, shouting in relief and amazement.

"Is there anyone else in there?" Jaime yelled to the first man.

"Yeah!" he replied. "We lost a couple, but there's Neil - he took the catwalk over to the other bulkhead door."

"Well, call him or go get him or something!" The man nodded and slipped back under.

"The rest of you guys, get out of here!" she yelled. It had obviously just occurred to the other two men that they were looking at a slim young woman holding up a door that weighed hundreds of pounds. Jaime, by now accustomed to seeing this particular expression on the faces of those who witnessed her bionics, yelled again - "GO!" - and they obeyed.

Jaime heaved the door upward until she could see into the engine room. It was an almost perfect vision of an industrial revolution hell. She was standing above the giant engines, which were crisscrossed by catwalks and multitudes of pipes. Through the smoke and flames she could see that the room was half filled with water. The stench of burning oil filled her nostrils and made her cough. In fact the whole scene caused a dark panic well up in her and she had to take a deep breath to resist the urge to drop the door and run. Before long, two figures appeared running along the catwalk. Jaime gestured wildly to them with her left arm.

"Get out of here! Don't wait for me - go now!" Both men hesitated. It didn't seem right to them that a woman should not only save them, but that they should then abandon her.

"Please!" she insisted. They passed quickly under the watertight door and tore down the hallway. Jaime let go of the door and it dropped like a giant heavy guillotine, closing off forever Engine Room Number Two. She only hoped that the men were right - that there was no one left.

In the excitement she had failed to notice the smoke getting thicker all around her - obscuring her vision. She hunched down and set off down the hall. She would be up those stairs in no time and Oscar wouldn't even notice she had been gone. Just at that moment, the huge bulk of Engine Three shifted from its moorings and slammed against the side of the hull. There was a mighty lurch, and the ship turned so hard that several people on deck were thrown into the water. Jaime had just opened the door to the stairwell and she was pitched forward, smashing hard into a riveted seam, instantly knocking her unconscious.


	6. Chapter 6

Oscar caught his balance on deck by grabbing onto the side of the second to last lifeboat which was suspended over the water, leaving him stretched precariously between ship and lifeboat until he was able to regain his balance and pull himself back on board. Both Rudy and Louise had been thrown a short distance, just saving themselves by catching the railing. All three noted that their feet were wet.

With the remaining lifeboat ready to be launched, Oscar ran awkwardly along the slope to his friends. The change in the ship's position caused a whole new array of sounds to begin - these more disturbing than all that had come before. These were the sounds of the very ship twisting and breaking. There were hideous loud howls, hisses and scraping noises, and mighty metallic groans.

"Where's Jaime?" he yelled.

"I don't know!" Rudy was frantic with worry. "She was watching you talk to the captain - and then she bolted off - through those doors. We called and she just kept going."

Suddenly four men burst noisily through the doors Rudy had just pointed to. They were filthy - almost completely black, but Oscar could just make out their engine room uniforms.

"I know where she is. I'm going after her." he said grimly. "Try to get them to hold the last lifeboat as long as you can."

"For God's sake Oscar - it's too dangerous! She's bionic! You're not!"

"Rudy," Oscar replied slowly, looking hard at his old friend, "if I came out of this alive, and she didn't - you understand, don't you?"

"Go, Oscar." Louise urged.

Rudy watched his friend depart from them and he turned to Louise, his eyes dark with rebuke. He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Oscar who had turned back to face them, pointing, his eyes blazing.

"And if you two aren't on that goddamn lifeboat when I get back up here, I'm going to be so mad I'll personally drown both of you!" He hiked up to the door, and was gone.

Louise looked after him, letting out a bemused chuckle before turning to Rudy. "I'd go after you, if you were down there." she said. "And I'm not bionic either."

He gazed at her and his expression changed from anger to affection. She was prone to being bossy, and nosy, and horribly blunt. Every now and then her mood would turn foul and for a while there was absolutely nothing he could do right. She was also his anchor, his best friend, and his lover. After all these years he didn't know where she ended and he began - and he didn't want to know. He slipped his arms around her and held her tight.

As the ship listed harder to port Oscar leaned heavily against the wall as he ran down the stairs. The air was increasingly darkened by smoke, and when he opened the door that lead to the next flight of stairs, he was assaulted by oily black billows that clogged his nose and lungs and stung his eyes. Covering his face in the crook of his arm, he continued, his fears for Jaime growing with every step. He could hardly see.

"Jaime!" he yelled, and then again, more desperately. "Jaime!" Would she even hear him over the hissing and banging and groaning that was emanating from the hulk of the injured ship? How would he find her when he couldn't even see a foot in front of him?

Fear constricted his heart in his chest, making him sweat and shiver. Strangely, he almost rejoiced in the sensation. Each step downward brought him new clarity of mind. So this was what it was to be alive - to pass through fear and danger because there was no avoiding it, no dodging it, as he had been trying to do for the last two years. He resisted the powerful urge to pray to a God he didn't believe in - to beg for Jaime's life, to accept with gratitude any and all heartaches that might lay in wait for him forevermore - just as long as she was alive.

There was a very good chance he would succumb to smoke inhalation before he found her - but he would not turn back without her, the force of the adrenalin running through his veins pushing him onward. There was only one possible outcome - he would find Jaime and they would both return safely to shore, and then he would never let her out of his sight again.

He moved blindly, feeling his way down, hunched over. He took so many stairs he thought he must have practically made it to the bottom of the ocean. He finally arrived at a small landing, and began to feel his way through the space, not sure what to expect next. He had taken no more than four shuffling steps forward when his foot bumped something that shouldn't have been there. He dropped to his knees, where he was able to perceive the shape of a woman. His heart racing, he bent very close, close enough that he could just make out her features.

"Jaime?"

She moaned. Oscar had never been so thrilled to hear an expression of pain. Though he felt like letting out a whoop of joy, he quickly and quietly collected her limp body into his arms. He doubted he would be able to make it back up holding her this way, so as gently as he could he slung her over his shoulder and began the long march up again. The ship had to be sitting at forty five degrees in the water, for he found it was easiest for him to climb up the seam between the stairs and the wall, leaning forward, using the stairs as footholds and the railing to keep him from falling against the wall. He took the stairs two by two, coughing hard as the smoke scorched his lungs. The only way he could mark progress was by the landings, because he couldn't see a thing. He reached the first quickly, and then at the next he bumped into the door before he saw it. Pushing through, he was greatly relieved to find the smoke thinner and more tolerable on the other side. Ignoring the pain in his legs and the aching in his lungs, he continued up. At the next landing, coughing violently and feeling extremely wobbly, he dropped to his knees and carefully lowered Jaime to the floor, pulling her into the shaky sanctuary of his arms.

The sound of his own wild breath and pounding heart dominated his hearing. The lights illuminating the passageway had dimmed to a peculiar, wavering orange color, but it was still bright enough for Oscar to see her face. He carefully pushed her hair aside, noting a blackish trickle of blood drying on her cheek. Following the trickle upward, he found a deep gash and a good sized bump on her forehead. He gently checked the rest of her head and breathed a sigh of relief - that gash wasn't pretty, and probably the blow was enough to knock her unconscious, but no more than that.

"Jaime?" he said softly, still breathing hard. For someone who loomed so large in his heart and mind, she felt so slight in his arms.

"Jaime?" he prompted again. If the lifeboat left without them they would have to swim - she had to be conscious.

She coughed weakly, and he hugged her close and kissed her forehead.

"You okay, Babe?"

"Oscar?" she croaked, her eyelids fluttering. "Oscar? Oh..." she murmured again, her voice tearful and relieved, her arm reaching up to the back of his neck. "I... I'm sorry I went ahead without you. I just couldn't stand it."

"It's okay, Babe." he smiled, holding her head to his heart and stroking her hair. "Do you think you can walk? We've got to get out of here."

She was quiet for a moment, soaking up the comfort Oscar brought her, the feeling of safety. He had saved her life.

"I think so." she said quietly, feeling unsure.

"Are you in pain? Do you feel sick?"

"No." was all she could manage to reply, because in truth she was very close to tears. She was in the arms of the man she loved, and he was holding her tenderly and protectively. She moved her hand up his neck to touch his cheek, and he responded by moving his face into her hand, turning his head so that her hand passed over his brow and his eyes and then his lips, and he kissed her palm.

"You.. you.. came to get me?"

"Of course."

"I thought you maybe you didn't ... care ... anymore."

"Oh, Jaime..." was the only reply he could manage.

She lifted her head from his chest and looked into his eyes. He seemed to be close to tears too - but there was something more - something she hadn't seen for two years - a loving, trusting, open expression.

"I've missed you." she whispered, holding his gaze, feeling breathless, not from smoke, not from fear, but because her blood was racing fast in her veins and her heart was pumping double time. She could feel his breath on her face and the heat of his skin, the smell of the red wine he'd had at dinner and the smoke that clung to him.

"I've missed you too, Babe." he replied with a sad smile. "Come on now," he added gently, moving to rise, "we really have to get out of this thing."**  
**

They made their way the last flights of steps together, Jaime having recovered enough to walk on her own. The ship's orientation in the water seemed to change second by second, so that they could almost feel it rotating under their feet as they clambered upward. They could now walk on the wall, as the wall became the floor and the stairs became the wall beside them. When they reached the exit, Jaime bent down and grasped the door handle, lifting the door up and out. Turned on its side, it was like a very wide trapdoor. They squatted down and peered out at the disaster taking place around them. The water churned and bubbled a mere 15 feet away, directly below them, debris littered through it. The ship's lights shone up eerily through the water, illuminating the scene in a eerie, greenish light.

A trail of brighter yellow lights lead out into the darkness, each representing a lifeboat. The last one - containing Rudy and Louise - was about thirty feet from the ship, finally having to launch or be pulled under.

"Do you think you can swim in this?" Oscar asked, pulling her closer to him. One of the downfalls of bionics was that they stopped functioning in conditions of extreme cold - and he feared the water would be cold enough to stop her in her tracks.

"If I go like crazy I should make it to the boat - but what about you?"

"I'm a pretty good swimmer."

"This is going to be really unpleasant. I hate cold water." she said with apprehension. "Let me get rid of this..."

She pulled hard on the door handle, instantly parting the door from its hinges. She tossed it outward, and they watched it flip end over end until it landed with a smack in the water some distance away.

"Well?" she said, offering her hand. He took it in his and nodded. From a squat they jumped outward, Jaime pulling Oscar with her in a bionically powered leap, pulling him an extra ten feet out past the foaming waters and the worst of the debris, but also yanking him out of balance and causing them both to belly flop. The water was colder than seemed possible. They rose to the surface howling and swearing.

"Go! Go!" he commanded, and Jaime took off in the direction of the last lifeboat. Her pace slowed all too soon as her bionics began to seize, and Oscar caught up to her just as they neared the small vessel. It was packed full of frantic and frightened people, and sat disturbingly low in the water. Rudy and Louise beckoned them forward, their arms outstretched.

"We can't take any more!"called a frantic voice from the stern.

"We can and we will!" Louise cried, rising up, her eyes blazing. Oscar guided Jaime the last few feet, and lifted her arm so she could take hold of the lifeboat. Once she was secure, he grabbed the edge of the lifeboat and put his other arm around her, pulling her close to him.

"Only one! Only one!" ordered the second mate from the prow. "We're too close to capsizing!"

"We _have_ to take them in!" Louise insisted, wheeling around to argue with him. The two people in the water listened closely to the exchange. "They'll _die_ out there!"

"He's right, Lou." Oscar interjected. "You're overloaded already. Rudy, pull her in. Louise, as soon as he starts to lift her, you shift over to the other side for balance."

Louise opened her mouth to protest, and then nodded mutely, tears rising in her eyes.

"I'm not getting in there, you are." Jaime blurted, her eyes wide with fear.

"No." he said. He found it difficult to sound authoritative while shivering so hard, but he had never meant anything more in his life. "I'm too big and you're injured... and you won't last."

"No, Oscar, no!" Jaime pleaded, her voice breaking. "I'm staying with you."

He loved her so - her selflessness and courage never ceased to amaze him. Her desire to stay with him touched him so deeply he found it hard to speak. "Babe," he said gently, insistently, "do this for me ... please?"

Her head dropped to his shoulder and she wept through gritted teeth. She was so afraid she would lose him just as they had finally found their way to each other.

"I'm going to be okay." he promised, though he felt the same dark fears she did, his heart breaking even as he reassured her. "Now get in there, will you?"

She looked into his eyes. She saw his love for her so clearly. She kissed him - a gesture she wanted to be passionate and meaningful, but they were both so cold, their skin so rubbery, and they were shivering so violently that it was a strange and discomfiting sensation rather than the one she wanted. He pushed her away, and she grabbed the gunwhale of the lifeboat with her other hand, attempting to heave herself upward. She was shockingly weak, and Rudy had to grasp her under the arms and haul her in.

A woman seated at the back of the boat immediately offered up her fur coat, which Rudy and Louise wrapped around Jaime, hugging her between them. Louise put her hand over Oscar's.

"Could you hang on to the boat and float with us?" she asked desperately.

"No, I'm going to look for better accommodations. Something a little drier." Oscar answered, pushing himself away. "Don't worry about me. I'll see you later." His eyes met Jaime's one more time before he turned away.

"Don't swim too much!" Rudy called out to him. Oscar raised an arm in acknowledgment.

Jaime was shaking violently, her throat tight with suppressed sobs. Rudy put his arm around her and placed his hand firmly to her forehead, holding her close to his chest.

"Man the oars." the second mate called out. "Let's put some distance between us and the ship."

Jaime sat up higher, looking for Oscar in the water. He was now about twenty feet away, his long arms rising and dipping into the water as he swam a slow front crawl away from them. Why was he going back toward the ship? Wasn't it going to suck down everything around it when it sank? Every particle of her yearned to jump into the water and go to him, but she knew she would sink like a rock. She closed her eyes and buried her face into Rudy's coat and wept in utter despair. He made a gentle shushing noise and squeezed her tight.

"Don't forget he's an ex-Navy man, Jaime. He knows what he's doing."

She nodded, though she felt no comfort from Rudy's words. She knew just how cold that water was.


	7. Chapter 7

FIVE sat nestled in the middle of Lifeboat Number One, next to her husband. If she were to proceed according to plan, she should now take her small pistol from her delicate beaded purse, stand up, and methodically execute her fellow passengers. Greta Wilson had never been the same after her beloved only son had been returned to her from Viet Nam cut in half in both body and spirit. As she could not quite bring herself to blame the men who wielded the political power, she decided instead that it was the people who invented the land mines, the bombs, the tanks and guns who were to blame. Mass destruction was only possible through the disgusting curiosity of the human mind. Where did it all start, after all, before the engineers and the manufacturers and the distributors? It all started in the laboratory. Nor did they ever take responsibility for their discoveries. "We are only there to learn." she had once heard an eminent chemist say, "We are not ethicists. There is no place for contemplation of the moral implications of our work, because that is an impediment to learning."

Those words had formed in her a hard, dark resolve, and it became her mission to reset the balance in the world. It was easy enough for her, with her international connections, her daily exposure to people who objected to and protested the actions of the American government, to seek out allies and make plans. No one took her seriously, she knew. She was just the pleasant, privileged, shallow wife of the Secretary of State.

There were two reasons she decided not to bother with this last part of the plan, the first being that she had already decided that the whole venture was a complete and utter failure. That hateful Oscar Goldman had been far too thorough in his security measures. The lifeboats had been the key to the plan. Everyone was supposed to have gone down with the ship, and failing that, she and her conspirators were supposed to be able to tidily kill whoever was left - but as it was, there were too many lifeboats in the water, too many passengers in them, and they could not be dealt with properly now. She had just seen the raft that FOUR had brought as a back up escape, floating in the water, filled with passengers - but without FOUR or the others.

The second reason was because of a conversation she had had the previous night with a Dutch microbiologist named Caspar Van Oosten. She had sensed a kindred spirit in this rotund man, and had cautiously advanced her concerns that science had a very dark side, to which he replied, "Mrs. Wilson, it is my theory that the world cannot continue on the course it is going. I believe that in our lifetime most of the men and women of science on this ship will live to see their work corrupted and used in ways they never dreamed of and would never sanction. Science and technology will not be our savior, as we would like to think. On the contrary, it will be the end of us, I assure you." So, it seemed her intervention was not necessary. The problem would take care of itself - and she could sit back and watch.

"Greta, are you smiling?" Douglas asked, looking to her with a frown.

"I'm trying to think of happier things, Darling." she replied, slipping her hand into his.

--

Oscar knew he was losing precious heat by swimming, but he also thought it best to get around to the other side of the ship in hopes of finding one of the upturned lifeboats. There seemed to be no one else in the water, and with an optimism that was rare for him, he decided that this was a sign that the evacuation had been successful. Avoiding debris as best he could, he cut wide around the stern of the ship, now lying sideways and over two thirds submerged. His limbs were stiffening and a knot of fear clenched his guts. He knocked his hand on a some unidentifiable hunk of wood, and noted that he hardly felt it. As he passed by, he saw that it was a door - actually it was _the_ door - that Jaime had cranked off its hinges a short time earlier. Choosing to regard this as a good omen, he clumsily pulled himself on top of it. It was a poor raft, always partly submerged, but it was a merciful relief to have at least some part of his body out of the water. The air was balmy in comparison to the water. _How long before a rescue team arrives?_ he wondered. By his own figuring he had entered the second stage of hypothermia - the shivering was so violent now that he feared complete loss of command over his limbs. What would it take to kill him - half an hour? Twenty minutes?

The lights on _the Anastasia_ flickered and went out, leaving only the green emergency lights and the stars above to illuminate the ship's last moments on the surface. The groaning and howling continued from the wreck, like metallic death cries from a giant iron beast. Perhaps he was the only one here beside her to witness her going down - and she was going down fast. The water was boiling and sputtering around her, and though he was far enough away to be safe from it, he registered the centrifugal pull in her direction.

Aboard Lifeboat Six, the Petty Officer suddenly stood and drew a gun. Before the five OSI agents aboard had a chance to stop him, he took aim and shot the eminent microbiologist Dr. Caspar Van Oosten through the chest, killing him instantly. No sooner had the first shot sounded than there was a second, and the Petty Officer known to Greta Wilson as THREE was dead from a shot to the head.

Now there was only the great sleek black side of the ship shining above the surface. She held there for some minutes, as though resisting her fate, and then, smoothly and silently, she dropped under the water. At first, her progress downward could be marked by the faint green lights glinting underwater, but quickly the darkness swallowed her up. Once she was gone Oscar was hit by a loneliness like nothing he'd ever felt before, and it made him want to scream. The ship had somehow kept him company. At least he wasn't entirely alone on that interminable, flat, freezing water - water that was waiting to suck him under too. No one could ever find him out here in the dark, he knew it. He rested his cheek on the surface of the door, succumbing for a moment to the horror of his situation. The pain was excruciating - it seemed to be emanating from his very bones. He closed his eyes and listened to his own shallow breath - so light, so insubstantial that it sounded like the breath of a child.

When he opened his eyes again he was amazed to see not twenty feet away the white belly of an upturned lifeboat. The pull of the ship had sucked all debris inward, and here, getting closer by the minute, was his best chance for salvation. Feeling a thrill of hope, he pushed himself off the door and clumsily paddled over to where the lifeboat was lying lowest in the water. Clambering and scrambling he attempted to heave himself up onto the slippery, smooth surface. It felt like the hardest task he had ever faced. His body was so frustratingly uncooperative, but he was aided by a fierce determination - he was a man with a lot to live for, and this was his only chance. On his third attempt, grunting, kicking and clawing, he finally pulled himself on to the flat bottom of the hull. There was not much to hang onto other than the keel, which he did with uncooperative fingers. Desperation was his greatest ally.

The shivering was diminishing, the pain ebbing, and he was actually beginning to feel warm. He knew this was only an illusion, but at least it was pleasant. He looked out into the inky blackness left where the ship had been. Somehow it seemed even darker there. The string of lights belonging to the lifeboats bobbed in the distance, and he wondered if they were rowing or merely waiting. Then he heard a splash and he turned to see what he thought was a person, clinging to a deck chair.

"Hello?" he called, his voice brittle with cold.

"'Allo?" an accented voice returned. "May I join you?"

"Yes! Can you get over here?"

There was a slight chuckle. "I'm trying."

Using the deck chair as a float, the man kicked toward the lifeboat and grabbed at the wide slick hull. Oscar, hanging on to the keel with one hand, leaned across and reached his hand out. The man grabbed awkwardly, his fingers stiff and weak. Tightening his grip as best he could around the man's forearm, Oscar heaved mightily, pulling him part way up, at which point the man reached for the keel, and with Oscar's help, threw himself safely onto their inadequate oasis. Resting on either side of the keel, they continued to grip each other's arm, for it provided a welcome stability and some sense of safety. They remained silent for some minutes, breathing hard, wincing from the pain of exertion. Finally the man looked to Oscar, his face an eerie white, contrasting with his lips, which were almost black.

"Well, it is even too cold for the fish promenade, don't you think?" the man said in a thick French accent.

"Uh... yes." Oscar replied uncertainly.

"I need new shoes for that anyway." he added.

"Me too." He had no idea what this man was talking about, but he didn't want to be rude, particularly in these difficult circumstances.

"You are Oscar Goldman, no?" he inquired, raising his arched eyebrows.

"I am."

The man laughed ruefully. "This is i-rony, I think." He spoke slowly, his tongue thickened by cold.

"Irony?"

"Because, my friend, your are one of the big ones we are suppose to kill, and here, you save me."

Oscar was silent for a moment, replaying the last sentence in his head. He wasn't feeling very swift, but he was pretty sure this man had just said he had intended to kill him. "You're supposed to kill me?"

"Yes - but don't worry, you are safe from me now. But not from the cold." He raised his eyebrows again and his thin face cracked open into a leering smile. He was so very pale. Oscar's heart was suddenly gripped by fear, not because he was afraid of what the man might do to him, but because he felt like he was speaking to someone who was already dead.

"We have made this to happen." The man nodded to where _the Anastasia_ had once been.

"You?" Oscar breathed, feeling suddenly alert, "Why?"

"You have heard of the English - the Luddite, Monsieur Goldman?"

Oscar frowned. What he heard was 'loo-deet' and it took him a moment to put it together. "The Luddites, yes. They burned down mills in the industrial revolution because they were angry about progress."

"Oui. You speak a little fast for me, but yes."

"_Nous pouvons parler Francais_." It felt like he had marbles in his mouth.

"You speak French?" the man asked in his native language. "That is unusual for an American." He paused and tried to pull himself higher onto the hull, pulling Oscar toward him at the same time.

Oscar waited for the spectre to say more, but for some time he just stared at him in an intense, hypnotic manner, his eyes large and prominent.

"Science and technology are ruining the world, Monsieur Goldman. The weapons, the pollution, the factories that poor people must work themselves to death in - these are all the products of science. The natural world grows weaker every day, and men and women no longer live natural lives. They live in little boxes and drive cars and breathe filthy air and sit under fluorescent lights. It is not a life."

Oscar felt so slow. "I don't understand. What does that have to do..."

"A ship full of the most eminent scientists in the world!" The Frenchman's eyes glinted, the whites of his eyes blue, the pupils an endless void of black. Oscar could feel the man's breath on his face as he spoke, and it smelled sharp and metallic. Then Oscar had a revelation - how could he not have recognized him? He had come to take all the people on the ship, and now he had come for him. It was obvious - this man was Death.

"But what do you care about how people live?" Oscar said angrily. Death didn't care about anything but snuffing out life, did he? "I believe science is there to help people. You use it for your purposes. You ought to love it." he added accusingly.

"My friend, the clock is on the wall, and underneath that clock is a child with pale skin and coal black eyes, and she reaches out and you suffocate her, do you hear me? You suffocate her."

"What?" Oscar asked, uncomprehending. "What are you saying?" He looked hard into the face of his companion, just a foot from his own. There was icy drip hanging from the end of Death's long aquiline nose.

"You are ruining the world." he added. His eyes were glassy, the light in them dimming second by second.

"I didn't know you were French." Oscar frowned.

"I'm not French. I'm Belgian."

"Oh." So Death was a Belgian. Who would have guessed?

"You are ruining the world." Death repeated.

"Science has done wonderful things." Oscar protested. "Miraculous things. The woman I love wouldn't be alive without scientific intervention. And because she is alive the world is a better place."

"Do you love a machine?" Death asked, with a sincere curiosity.

"No!" Oscar snapped. "She's human. Perfectly, wonderfully, _human_!"

I'm sorry my friend, I don't mean to offend you. But can you honestly tell me that science is good and wonderful? After the atom bomb?"

"You can't stop it." Oscar answered, trying to keep a grip on his reason. "So all you can do is shape the future, hopefully for the good."

"Ah, an idealist. Well, I am an idealist too - a different kind." Death's eyelids were drooping now, but he still leered, reminding Oscar of the drunks who have to be thrown out of the bar at closing time. "Tell me," Death said, his voice dropping low, "is your heart made of leaves and asparagus, or ammonium nitrite and titanium?"

"What?" Oscar asked, trying to imagine his heart as a bunch of asparagus.

"You are not listening to me. There is much you have to learn, my friend. Too bad there is no time." Death chuckled as though delighted by his own private joke. The grey pearls of his teeth glinted between black lips.

"You're not making any sense." Oscar said. He was so revolted by this creature, so irrationally frightened of him, and yet he felt strangely protective of him.

"I can see into you." Death said. "There is an acid, that pours down behind your eyes and pools in the bottom of your heart." His lids lifted and he looked hard at Oscar, and Oscar could have sworn he felt an icy trickle at the backs of his eyes. "But for all that, you seem like a nice man. I'm sorry I killed you." He seemed to regard this as his closing remark, and rested his face on the hull.

"No - keep talking!" Oscar barked. "You have to keep talking or you'll die."

Death chuckled again and ignored him.

"Hey!" Oscar prodded, yanking on his arm.

Death lifted his head, looking at his intended victim through ice hazed eyes, "Is this woman you love - is she in a lifeboat?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry about that."

"What do you mean you're sorry about that?" Panic beat at Oscar's chest. "What do you mean?!" His mind raced - what was the danger in the lifeboats? Could his men deal with whatever might arise? He repeated the question ten times over, squeezing Death's arm and poking at him with his free hand, to no avail. Still Oscar continued to grip his arm like he was hanging onto his own life.

"Don't die." he pleaded. "Please don't die." He was more afraid and more lonely than he had ever been in his entire life. He even preferred the company of Death to solitude. Besides, what would happen if Death were to die?

Despite Oscar's efforts, Death's grip slowly slackened and released.

"No!" Oscar cried. "No." He hung on all the harder, but his hands were too cold, too uncooperative, and inch by inch, the cold fingers slipped through his. The lifeless body of ONE slipped from the hull and landed in the water with a lazy splash. Oscar wriggled higher up the hull and flung himself over the center. He couldn't even feel the keel pressing into his ribs. His hands were now as useless as blocks of wood, so all he could do was position himself well and hope he wouldn't slip into the water. As he watched the body drift away he was overcome by grief. The tears that welled in his eyes were strangely warm - perhaps the last bit of warmth left in him, but they turned cold before they dropped from his jaw. His face pressed into the hull, he wept for himself - for the aching loneliness he felt, for the fact it was now too late. He wept for the woman he loved so well and for the beautiful opportunity he had missed, and for the fact that he could to nothing to keep her safe. So much waste. So much loneliness. Everything he had done in his life was nothing to him now. All he wanted was Jaime, and he would never see her again. It was all futile. Now he had even been abandoned by Death - and what did that mean for him? Did it mean he was to float out here in this dark night forever? And was Death right now rushing toward the lifeboats, skimming below the surface of the pitch black waters like a shark seeking prey? Making his way to Jaime? Oscar thumped his useless hands on the hull of the boat, and sobbed, helpless, frozen, alone.

Then came a memory - one long forgotten. He could feel his mother's hand holding his, warm and firm and safe. He was not more than three. Every week the two of them walked to the empty lot across the street from their house in Rhode Island. It was asparagus hunting day. He and Mother, bowing their heads solemnly to their work, searched the gravel and dry dirt for the fresh new shoots of asparagus that sprung up here and there. Usually they left with a good sized handful which Mother always cooked up that night, every time making sure to tell his father and brother and sister that he, Oscar, had found them all. He was as proud as if he had come home from the hunt with a bison.

So why did Death have to come and get his mother so early? That was a question he should have asked him. She was a year younger than Oscar was now when she died. Louise was right. His mother would have loved Jaime.


	8. Chapter 8

Oscar was not truly aware of the Zodiac that drew alongside the capsized lifeboat, and of the Canadian naval crew that gently pulled him into the rescue boat, wrapped him in blankets and sped him back to the awaiting ship. Oscar floated, experiencing only a dim sense of movement and bustle, with no idea that he had been transferred to the _HMS Lunenburg_, that two kindly nurses removed his icy wet clothing and dressed him in warm, dry Canadian Navy issue trousers, shirt and sweater, that they sat him up and made him sip hot tea, that they surrounded him with hot water bottles and wrapped him in wool blankets, and listened to his incoherent babblings about Luddites and asparagus and someone named Jaime. When he had ascended from the worst of the hypothermia, they let him rest.

Jaime and Rudy and Louise were the fifth lifeboat to board _the Lunenburg_ in the early hours of the morning, before dawn. Cold and stricken, they were herded into the dining room to join the hundred others already on board who stood around, blankets thrown over their shoulders, coffee in hand, staring into their cups. Jaime, still very wet, was handed a Navy uniform and told where she could change.

"Go, Jaime. Get into dry clothes." Louise ordered. "Rudy and I will see what we can find out and we'll meet you back here."

Her mind numbed with anxiety and cold, Jaime obeyed. She struggled out of her wet clothes and into the dry ones as quickly as possible, returning to the dining room a minute later clad in a Navy uniform that was a little too big for her. She scanned the room carefully - perhaps she would see him there, sipping coffee from a paper cup. She roamed around, checking all faces, but of course he wasn't there - and neither were Rudy and Louise, so she stepped out on deck. This was a horrible purgatory. One part of her wanted to run all over the ship until she found Oscar alive and well, and the other part of her recoiled from the task - sure that he would not be found - that he had frozen to death out there in the night, all alone. This inner turmoil was reflected in the way she turned around four times, unable to decide which way to go, afraid to make the wrong move. Then she heard a whoop of joy from down the deck, and she spun around to see Rudy and Louise running toward her with big grins on their faces, waving their arms. He heart practically shot up to the sky and she bounded to their sides in an instant, clutching at them as if to pull the news from them.

"He's here!" Rudy shouted happily. "He's in the sick bay - recovering from hypothermia."

"Well, let's go!" Jaime cried, leaping forward, practically dragging her friends with her. "How is he?"

"He's going to be fine." Rudy answered as they jogged down the deck. "They pulled him off an upturned lifeboat a couple of hours ago. He was at stage three, but they're pleased with how well he's warmed up."

Was it really possible he was alive and unscathed? She had to see him to know it was real. They slowed their pace to pass through sick bay in an appropriately sober manner, and it was the longest walk of Jaime's life. Rudy quietly lead her to one of several curtained off areas, and they stepped inside together. There was Oscar, bundled up almost beyond recognition, very pale, but breathing steadily, apparently asleep. Jaime pressed her hands to her face as she felt tears rise to her eyes. Louise put her arm around her, and they both wept in pure relief. Rudy quietly placed a chair beside the bed and guided Jaime to it.

"We'll be nearby if you need us." he whispered, kissing her on the cheek. She smiled at them both as they slipped away.

Turning back to Oscar, Jaime wiped away her tears, scooted her chair as close to the bed as possible, and put her hand over his chest. She wanted to say something to him but found herself so utterly overcome that words would not form on her lips, so instead she simply watched him sleep, grateful for every breath he took.

Oscar dreamed he was a planet, dark blue in color and frozen to the core. He was shatteringly cold - nothing but ice, dust, and rock - entirely devoid of life. He could feel himself orbiting, making wide sweeps around the sun out into the freezing reaches of some distant solar system. After a while, perhaps a million years or so, the earthquakes started, coming right from the core, rattling the whole planet, rattling the rocks and dust and shattering the ice. Even after he felt sure that he had been reduced to powder, the shaking continued, and that was followed by a sensation of heat. The heat was replacing the cold in him, a burning, painful heat, and now he was on fire, but somehow still cold. His planet burned like the angriest sun. He had no idea how long this would go on or how long he could tolerate it. Then he heard the voices from out in space somewhere, and as they came closer he felt a softening sensation. Gradually, over millions of years, the heat diminished, and he became pleasantly warm. In fact, he became a ball of wool. A ball of wool floating in outer space. Were those voices there to knit him into something? There was one voice in particular - a perfect strand of gold colored wool. He felt something on his chest - he had a chest now - he was no longer a ball of wool apparently - and then it came to him - it was _Jaime's_ voice. He immediately ordered his reluctant eyelids to open, and was rewarded by smiling hazel eyes gazing into his.

He was instantly alert. _Jaime! _His heart skipped and he made a sound that was part gasp, part laugh, and part sob, and then without further hesitation he lifted himself to her and kissed her with all of the intensity of his love for her and she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back. It was a moment she would remember for the rest of her life.

The nurses who had just arrived to take his vitals whooped and laughed in surprise.

"I certainly hope the young lady appreciates these attentions, Sir!" one of them said.

Jaime's lips parted from his and she looked to the two women.

"The young lady does." she grinned. She turned her attention back to Oscar, pushing her fingers through his hair. "Very much."

"Perhaps we ought to give them a minute." said the older nurse with a wink to her colleague, and the two departed.

"Oh..." Oscar said with a frown of concern, running his fingers lightly over the bandage on Jaime's forehead.

She smiled, still not quite believing that he was alive, and that they were here together. Now seemed like a good moment to tell him the truth. "Have I mentioned to you, Oscar Goldman, that I am madly, passionately in love with you?"

"Why, no you haven't." Oscar smiled in return, scanning her face. "Have I mentioned to you, Jaime Sommers, that you are my reason for living, and that I love you more than... more than ... everything?"

The last word barely escaped his lips before Jaime was kissing him again.


	9. Chapter 9

The _HMS Lunenburg_ docked in Halifax harbor later that day, and passengers and crew were immediately delivered to the _Lord Halifax_, a plush old hotel on the waterfront, courtesy of the American government. On the orders of Jack Hansen of the NSB, who had flown in to conduct the investigation, the four floors occupied by survivors were locked down and no one would be allowed out except to a conference room on the third floor, where the investigation would be conducted.

When the list of passengers and crew was checked, it seemed as though only eight people out of the four hundred eleven on board had died. The first and most shocking was the unaccountable murder of Dr. Van Oosten by the petty officer, who was next on the fatalities list. Two men from Engine Room Two were lost, presumably killed in the explosion, along with a British security man, and a kitchen worker.

Though Jack would have preferred to have him participate in the investigation, Oscar was determined to stay out of it.

"I'm just another witness. I can tell you all the security measures I took, I can tell you what I saw. This investigation needs to be run by a disinterested party."

Jack grumblingly accepted Oscar's reasoning, but made sure the Director of the OSI was his very first interview on the first day of the investigation. Oscar got up that morning with the deepest reluctance, leaving Jaime nestled sweetly in the tangled bedding. At nine a.m. sharp he presented himself at the third floor conference room. Jack noted that he was in strange frame of mind, though he had no clue why. First off, it was not like Oscar to give up control in a situation like this, and then he had a weird euphoric quality to him that Jack had never seen before - perhaps it was the residual effects of a near death experience. He was obviously concerned about his role in the sinking of _the Anastasia,_ and went so far as to take responsibility for the whole thing, but he was also strangely impatient and distracted throughout the interview.

At the end of the second hour Oscar snapped, "Need I remind you that you have four hundred people to interview Jack?"

"Okay! Okay!" Jack said, throwing his hands in the air. "Go! But I'll need you back here later."

"Sure." Oscar replied, and he bolted from the room.

--

Jaime hadn't been entirely indolent in the two hours Oscar had been gone. She'd gotten out of bed a few minutes after he left and had taken a shower. After that she contemplated getting dressed, but quickly rejected the idea and slipped back under the covers again. This was where she wanted to be when Oscar returned, and she knew that was where he wanted to be too. She was languid and deliciously tired and blissfully overwhelmed by love. She couldn't read, she couldn't eat, she couldn't watch television - all she could do was think of Oscar, every sweet word he murmured to her, every caress, every sigh, every inch of his body, how wonderful it was to hold him, how much she was now missing him, and what she would next do to him to send him into a state of ecstasy. She was easily moved to tears when she contemplated the intensity of feeling between them. All those barriers he had put up fell away so quickly, and she was amazed by the openness of his heart, his effusiveness and his honesty. It was as though the dam had burst - and more than anything else she wanted to protect that in him.

So the morning had passed pleasantly until that knock on the door. For some reason she didn't even think to look through the peep hole, assuming it was housekeeping or room service. To her horror she opened the door to the Secretary of State - who was just as shocked as she was - and now with one careless moment she had likely set off some fresh disaster that would leave Oscar furious or devastated, and probably unemployed. She hunkered down under the covers and waited, her eyes screwed shut in remorse.

--

Once Oscar had left the conference room and was alone in the hallway, he slowed to a halt. He should have been marching himself straight over to the Secretary's room to confess about Jaime - not a visit he particularly relished making. Perhaps he could allow himself to go be with Jaime for an hour - just one hour. He needed her; he ached for her. And then after that he would go to see the Secretary. Without fail. Having reached a decision about which he felt extremely pleased and only slightly guilty, he walked to the elevator and hit the button for the fourth floor. His mind eagerly slipped back to the previous night, when he had held her in his arms, sheltering her the way he had after finding her on the sinking ship, her body curled safely against his. He learned her face anew, exploring with his lips and fingertips, his eyes locked to hers, her hands cradling his face, running through his hair. They didn't speak, because words could add nothing to what was already sheer perfection. He had never in his life felt as loved as he did at that moment, and he had never loved anyone so profoundly as he loved Jaime Sommers. But now, after two hours apart he needed to see her again - to reassure himself that she was unchanged in her feelings, that he had not said or done something to ruin everything. The bell pinged and the elevator doors opened to reveal Douglas Wilson standing on the other side.

"Oscar Goldman!" Wilson boomed. "Just the man I wanted to speak to."

"I wanted to speak to you too, Sir." Oscar replied, suddenly rattled. _No time like the present..._ he told himself, screwing up his courage.

"In fact," Wilson said, beckoning Oscar to him, "I just stopped by your room to try to catch you, and imagine my surprise when the door was answered by none other than Miss Jaime Sommers, wearing a bathrobe, and, if I'm not mistaken," he raised an eyebrow, "... an afterglow."

The blood drained from Oscar's head. He felt like a small boy who had been caught playing hooky. "I'm sorry Sir..." he stammered, "that's what I wanted to speak to you about."

"You know, when she saw me," the Secretary added, "she adopted an expression _exactly_ like the one you're wearing right now."

Oscar had hoped it wouldn't come to this. He looked Wilson squarely in the eye and said the words he so dreaded. "I'll tender my resignation immediately Sir, and I apologize for the embarrassment."

"Good God man, I don't want your resignation!" Wilson scoffed. "Quite the contrary. I was coming to apologize to _you._"

"To ... to me, Sir? What for?" This was not what he was expecting.

"You were right about this voyage." Wilson said, his voice dropping, his tone becoming confessional. "It was a harebrained idea, and this whole disaster is entirely my fault. I should have listened to you. " Wilson shook his head and grimaced, his pale blue eyes filled with regret.

Oscar looked at his feet, unsure how to reply. "Well Sir, I can't tell you how much I wish I had been wrong."

"Indeed. I want you to know that I am going to make sure that Hansen and the President know that you did an exceptional job, and that the blame is entirely mine."

"Oh, thank you Sir, but that's far too generous of you. Obviously I failed..."

"As for your relationship with Jaime," Wilson interrupted, "I wish you nothing but happiness. I know you well enough, Oscar, to know that you're not a man who takes things lightly - she must be very important to you."

"She is, Sir."

"And call me Douglas, will you? I hope we're going to work very closely together in the future. Obviously I need you. We'll have a talk later about how to properly manage your working relationship with Jaime and that sort of thing, but don't worry about it just now. I think you'd better get back to your room." he smiled slyly and slapped Oscar on the arm. "I'm sure she's dying a thousand deaths in there for having answered the door."

"Thank you... Douglas." Oscar grinned, suddenly feeling fantastically unburdened. He turned from the Secretary of State, and grinning all the way, ran down the hall to his room.

He was so anxious to get back to her he could barely get the key into the lock. No sooner had he closed the door behind him than he shed his Canadian Navy issue sweater and shirt, leaving them where they fell as he moved to the bed. Instead of his beautiful, beaming girl waiting for him, there was nothing more than a large lump of covers. If a lump could look apologetic, this one did.

He couldn't help but laugh. "It's okay, Babe, it's fine." He threw himself diagonally across the bed toward her, "He didn't fire me. He didn't accept my resignation. He says he hopes we'll be happy...Babe..."

"Happy?" asked a muffled voice.

He yanked the covers from her head, which pulled her long hair forward into a tangle over her regretful green eyes. He gently pushed it aside, revealing her anxious face. "It's really okay." he said soothingly, "we both still have our jobs."

"Really?" she asked, still absorbing the information.

"Really." he grinned.

"Oh, my God, I was so worried." she gushed, "I just knew you were going to run into him in the hall and..."

She was unable to finish the sentence because Oscar abruptly lifted himself to her, and pushing her back into the pillows, kissed her with a hunger that instantly warmed her entire body and made her light headed. When he finally released her, she blinked several times in an effort to collect her thoughts.

"How did it go with Jack?" she sighed. "Did you tell him about what happened to you on the lifeboat?"

"No." he said, burying his face in her hair, kissing her neck. "I'm still not sure it actually happened."

"You've got to tell him, Baby." She grasped his face in her hands and forced him to look her in the eye. "You can leave out the part about it being Death, but I think it did happen and it might be important."

"I guess so." He frowned uncertainly. "It just sounds so far fetched."

"But you can tell him later." Jaime murmured with a smile, hitching herself closer to him, yearning to feel the weight of his body over hers. "I can't tell you how much I've missed you."

"The longest two hours of my life." he agreed. He slowly pulled the covers down, revealing her naked body. "Mmmmm..." he said.

"Better get into bed, my love," Jaime whispered, teasing his earlobe with her lips and tongue, "we've got a lot of celebrating to do."

Oscar swiftly discarded his pants and slipped between the sheets, utterly ecstatic and, for the second time this morning, desperate with desire. The bed was warm and smelled of fresh soap. As he sidled over and his skin met hers, he shivered with anticipation. Jaime eagerly pulled him to her, aching again for the union of their bodies.

While nearly everyone else was frustrated by their imprisonment, Jaime and Oscar couldn't have been happier. Though one or both of them was required intermittently over the next three days for the investigation, the moment they were released, they hurried back to the room, where they made love, held each other close, and talked for hours on end. They each harbored a million questions about the other, from big questions to the little curiosities that had piled up during their friendship, unasked over the years, due to fears of seeming nosy or too intimate.

--

Jack ended the investigation feeling not much further ahead than when he started out. Four hundred interviews gave him only vague murmurings about odd behavior from several of the people who were lost in the wreck, but there was nothing about any of these suspects that otherwise stood out - most particularly a motive.

--

Late in the afternoon of their last day in the Lord Halifax Hotel, Oscar, freshly dressed and showered, smoothed the front of his sweater and smiled. It was a good keepsake. As he pulled his collar up through the neck, he ambled over to the window and looked out over Halifax harbor. He wasn't so much looking at the scenery as he was thinking about Jaime. He had done virtually nothing but think about Jaime every minute he wasn't actually in her presence, which were few.

She was so very different than the Lisa Galloway Jaime. Lisa had only tolerated him - he could see that now. The real Jaime didn't just accept love from him, she returned it - with enthusiasm, with a passion that sent him reeling. His internal RDC told him to keep some part of himself back as protection, but he was unable to do it. In fact, he'd pretty much sent the RDC packing the moment he first opened his eyes and saw her on the rescue ship. In that instant he had given himself over to her completely. And he could feel it was what she wanted and needed from him - everything he could give - and he could see his effect on her. There was a clarity in her eyes that he had not seen for a long time, an ease in her body. It was like looking out to the horizon on a clear day. He leaned against the wall, weak with joy.

A moment later Jaime burst out of the bathroom, bundled in a bathrobe, combing her wet hair out.

"I'm sorry - " she blurted, looking worried, "are we going to be late? I'm sorry I took so long."

He frowned in bemusement. "We've got half an hour. There's no fire."

"Oh." she sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed. "I thought you were going to be mad at me for taking so long. It's just that you're so quick in the shower..."

"The Navy did that to me, Babe. I can't help it." He looked perfectly relaxed, and she suddenly realized she was operating on assumptions that belonged to a different relationship. Steve hated being late and became irritable if he thought she was taking too long getting ready. She wasn't the most punctual person in the world, but nor was she the most tardy, and it had been a small source of conflict between them.

Oscar turned to the window.

After a moment, Jaime sensed his mood had darkened, and she stopped combing her hair. "Hey." she called softly, patting the bed beside her. "Come sit." He obediently sat down beside her and she nudged him with her shoulder. "What's going on in there?"

"What if I drive you crazy?" he asked.

"Honey, I hate to break it to you, but you've been driving me crazy for years."

Oscar didn't laugh. "But seriously, Jaime - what if I'm just like Steve? I don't even really understand why it didn't work out with you two - so why would it work out with me?"

"What are you - some kind of mind reader?"

"Well, I've been on the receiving end of Steve's mania for punctuality once or twice too, you know."

"You have?" Jaime laughed. "So you recognized the furtive look in my eye, huh?"

He nodded.

"Oscar Goldman," she reproved, "only you could take something Steve does and you don't do and somehow turn it into a flaw of yours!"

"Babe..."

"Shh." she said, gently placing her fingers over his lips. Though they had been so gloriously happy these last two days, Oscar's brain, so accustomed to worrying, had been doing this - skittering around, searching for some fresh anxiety to latch on to. Though she knew it was partly his makeup, it was also force of habit, and she hoped she could ease him into a more relaxed state over time. "Don't worry."

He took her hand from his mouth so he could speak. "My mother used to say that if she wasn't worrying she would know she was dead. I think I got it from her."

Jaime smiled, and rubbed the length of his back slowly and firmly, silent for some moments. "You know what my problem was with Steve?"

"What?" Oscar asked anxiously, waiting for the secret that would allow him to sidestep disaster.

"He wasn't you." she said quietly, her face intent and serious.

A fleeting look of hope crossed his face, but his expression remained doubtful and serious, his eyes searching hers.

"I mean it, baby. We're finally getting it right. You can drive me crazy all you want and it isn't going to change how much I love you."

He continued to gaze at her, his brown eyes so vulnerable that she couldn't stand it, so she kissed him.

"Stop worrying." she commanded in a stern voice, holding him by the chin.

Finally he smiled - that big, modest smile that melted her heart every time. "Okay." he said.

"Besides," she added, fiddling with his collar, "I never could resist a man in uniform."

--

They arrived at the restaurant before Louise and Rudy and were seated on the patio, which was actually the edge of the old pier. After three days spent mostly in bed, they felt like nocturnal creatures boldly venturing out into the light and air. Sitting side by side, Oscar listened intently as Jaime told him of the conversation she had with one of the grateful men from Engine Room Two. She was such a joyful person; her enthusiasm for life was utterly infectious. He was smiling now, and pretty soon she would make him laugh, as she always did, and he would feel his ribcage expand, feel the fresh clean air of a new life swirl through his lungs. All he had ever wanted was to love her, to take care of her, and make her laugh, and now he had the chance. Impulsively he leaned over and kissed her cheek.

"What was that for?"

He was about to explain but was distracted by some loud giggling nearby. He looked up to see Rudy and Louise, laughing as they walked to the table.

"What's so funny?" Oscar asked with mock indignation.

"You...you should see yourselves!" Louise answered, suppressing laughter. "You look like the Bobsey twins gone wrong. The matching outfits...the bandage on Jaime's head... the fact you don't look remotely like twins." She laughed again. "It's funny, believe me."

They hugged their friends, settled into their seats still laughing, and immediately ordered a good bottle of red wine.

"Get this." Jaime said to them, "I've been saving this up to tell you, because I knew you'd appreciate it. He wants to take me _sailing._"

"Oscar!" Rudy reproved. "Are you crazy? You've just been through a _shipwreck_."

"I want her to come sailing with me!" Oscar shrugged defensively. "It's no crime. The last time we went sailing together we were hijacked by a bunch of criminals who scuttled my boat!"

"Exactly!" Jaime replied, punching him lightly on the arm. "I told him we don't have a very good record on open water."

"Well, sailing can be fun, you know. I haven't taken my boat out much since it was fixed up, and I'm dying to get her out onto the water. The _Delmar _is the only other woman in my life and it's important that she and Jaime get along." he said, giving Jaime a warm look.

"Give it a couple of weeks okay, Oscar?" Rudy said with a grin. "Doctor's orders."

Louise looked at the two of them, her attention flicking from one to the other. It was remarkable what love could do. 'Bright eyed and bushy tailed' was the most apt term she could think of. Even with a bandage on her forehead, Jaime was absolutely radiant, as though she were spun from gold - and he was almost unrecognizable. Transformed from the dark, grim character he had been for two years, he was downright boyish - his smile wide and genuine, his eyes sparkling and mischievous.

When the wine had been poured, Rudy raised his glass. "First off, here's to being alive." They made their toast, and then he continued, "...and here's to love, new..." he said, looking to Jaime and Oscar, "and..." he said, turning to his wife, "... not so new." They laughed, clinked glasses and drank.

Oscar held the wine in front of him and stared into the liquid for a moment. "And..." he said, lifting his glass once again, "here's to my mother, who would have had the good sense to love Jaime." He looked directly into Louise's eyes and toasted her first.

Jaime knew it was an apology, and Louise clearly knew it too, for her smile was warm and forgiving. Though Jaime had pondered telling Oscar that she had heard that awful "aversion therapy" conversation, she decided against it. For one thing, she shouldn't have been eavesdropping, but more importantly, Oscar would be so embarrassed. As he had told her on that sailboat a long time ago, just before they were picked up by that bunch of criminals, he hated being caught out in a lie - and Jaime now knew that he had been lying as hard as he could to Louise. But now there was no more reason to lie. Together they had found the truth. It had taken awhile to get there, but it was worth the wait.

**EPILOGUE**

Jack Hansen was never able to make headway with the investigation. Even after following up every single tenuous lead, there was so little to work with it quickly became clear it was a hopeless cause. Though Jack was enormously frustrated by his inability to close the case, he was even more frustrated by Oscar's apparent lack of concern about the whole thing. The man who hated loose ends - who never, ever gave up, who had driven everyone crazy with his endless security precautions, had said to him, "It's an anomaly, Jack. Whoever they were - they're through. I just can't worry about it anymore." leaving Jack open mouthed in amazement.

--

Two years later, when his friend Douglas Wilson haltingly confided that he thought his wife was mentally ill, Oscar thought back to a conversation he had with Greta Wilson at his wedding. He'd meant to tell Jaime about it at the time, but had forgotten. It was his wedding after all; he did have other things on his mind.

It was after dinner and the interminable toasts, during the dance, when he had decided to make himself scarce when Steve asked Jaime onto the dance floor. Though he was grateful for Steve's gracious acceptance of their romance and marriage, he didn't really want to stand around watching while they danced together. So he had ambled toward the back of the room and found Greta sitting by herself. The sinking of _the Anastasia_ had occurred only four months earlier and as they had not seen each other since it was a natural topic of conversation. Oscar found himself describing in detail his conversation with the Belgian on the upturned lifeboat, including his hallucination that he was speaking to Death. Greta seemed captivated by the story, her eyes wide and haunted. Her response disturbed Oscar, though he couldn't quite tell why. He told her there was something about that night that had stayed with him, that he now approached his work with a small skepticism, a small dissenting voice that had been planted in him by the Belgian.

Greta clasped his hand in hers, tears in her eyes. "Thank you for telling me that." She daubed her eyes with her sleeve, recovered her composure, and patted his hand with a motherly affection. "You'd better run along." she said, gesturing behind him. "Your wife is looking for you."

"My wife." Oscar smiled, repeating the words in happy disbelief. He turned to see Jaime casting her eyes around the room, searching for him. He stood, and she saw him, and her face lit up in a big radiant smile. With a skip in his step he went to her.


End file.
